The voices that hallucinating people claim to hear are almost always of males, the Munich-based medical newspaper Aerztliche Praxis (Medical Practice) reported. Citing studies by researchers at the University of Sheffield, the report said that the reason for this phenomenon may lie in the different qualities of sound characteristic of male and female voices.
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe has ruled out talks with Morgan Tsvangirai, the leader of the main opposition party Movement for Democratic Change. ”No sir, I don’t want to meet you,” he told thousands gathered in Harare’s Heroes’ Acre, a shrine to those killed during the country’s independence war.
The death toll from Typhoon Matsa that ripped through eastern China rose to 10 on Monday with seven of the casualties reported in Shanghai, state media said. Matsa slammed into coastal areas over the weekend, tearing up roads, reservoirs and houses, causing -million of damage in China’s glitziest city, Shanghai, alone.
Intensive security measures were in place in KwaDukuza on the KwaZulu-Natal north coast on Monday after taxis were forced to stop all operations at midnight on Sunday. This comes after a tribunal was set up to look into the violence between rival taxi associations in which 14 people have died in the past two months.
Two men and a boy were due to appear in Mpumalanga courts on Monday on charges of raping two girls in separate incidents over the weekend, police said. In the first incident, a 13-year-old girl was allegedly raped by a 23-year-old man when she went to visit him with a friend on Saturday.
Cape Town’s central business district, which has already been the recipient of about 1 100 new hotel rooms in the past five years will be the site of at least nine more new hotels in the next two years, according to the Cape Town Partnership.
The price-structure report released by the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) last month on Telkom’s ADSL service has solicited further political backing, with the Independent Democrats also joining the fray on Monday. The Patricia de Lille-led ID endorsed Icasa’s report on "inflated" fees.
Japan’s Upper House of Parliament voted down legislation to split up and sell the country’s postal service on Monday, prompting Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi to follow through on a threat to call snap elections that could shake the ruling party’s grip on power.
Crude futures rose to a new high of ,69 in Asian trading on Monday as the United States government announced the closure of its embassy and consulates in Saudi Arabia due to security threats and on continued concerns that earlier shutdowns of US oil refineries would reduce supply.
The former chief of the Iraq oil-for-food programme resigned on Sunday, a day before investigators release a report that is expected to accuse him of taking kickbacks. Benon Sevan accused United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan of failing to stand by him and blasted the independent inquiry committee investigating allegations of corruption.