Three pensioners were in intensive care in a Grenoble hospital on Thursday after ordering a glass each of a popular local liqueur, génépi, and being mistakenly served caustic soda. The three, a man of 69, his wife, 68, and her 94-year-old mother, were still in a critical condition after drinking the highly corrosive and toxic cleaning fluid.
Dublin’s Abbey Theatre, which has produced a long line of geniuses from Sean O’Casey to Brian Friel, does not put on an annual Christmas pantomine. But if it did produce a raucous show of punch-ups, mishaps and double entendre, nothing could match the excruciating farce that continues to unfold backstage.
South Africa has already signed a provisional memorandum of understanding with Zimbabwe for a R6,5-billion credit facility, Business Day reported on Friday. It said officials from the South African Reserve Bank and their Zimbabwean counterparts had agreed on a draft deal last week.
London played host to one of its more unusual investment roadshows on Thursday as representatives of the Iraqi telecommunications regulator came to town to look for investors in the country’s fledgling cellphone industry. Years of warfare followed by crippling sanctions have left Iraq as one of the least developed telecoms markets in the world — just 3% of the country.
Not even a thousand years at the crossroads of an international trade route has given Lamu, off Kenya’s north-east coast, much sense of urgency. But it has left a rich blend of East African Swahili, Indian, Omani, Yemeni and some Portuguese influences. Lamu Town has been recognised by Unesco as the oldest and best-preserved Swahili settlement in East Africa.
The Sudanese government was forced to apologise to the United States secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, on Thursday after a series of scuffles between her entourage and Sudanese security. Officials and reporters travelling with Rice to Khartoum were initially prevented from entering the compound of the president, Omar Hassan al-Bashir.
Police arrested 250 anti-disengagement protesters as a mass demonstration in Kefar Maymon came to an end on Thursday having failed to reach the Gaza Strip settlements. The protesters were arrested after slipping away from the main demonstration and trying to get past army lines into the settlements.
The Iraqi government’s forces are nowhere near battle ready and only a small number are capable of fighting the insurgency on their own, according to a newly declassified Pentagon document. The assessment paints a stark picture of Iraqi military readiness that contrasts with the Pentagon’s upbeat official tone.
All South African Airways (SAA) flights leaving from Johannesburg and Cape Town International airports were grounded on Friday morning as the airline’s employees embarked on a nationwide strike, the United Association of South Africa (Uasa) said.
Key economic sectors looked set for further disruption on Thursday as thousands of workers braced for national strikes on pay. More than 20 000 workers at Pick ‘n Pay belonging to the South African Commercial, Catering and Allied Workers Union and about 3 600 members of the South African Transport and Allied Workers Union at SAA will withdraw their labour on Friday, the two unions said.