United States-made audio players installed at Beijing’s international airport to scare birds off the runway have failed because of the "language barrier", state media said on Thursday. The machines play sounds of predatory birds, such as hawks, to shoo away birds that pose a danger to aircraft. But the pests were apparently unruffled by the "foreign" squawks.
In a feat that put human sword swallowers to shame, a British dog managed to gulp down a stick only 5cm shorter than its own body, and escape unscathed, a report said on Thursday. Millie, a two-year-old Staffordshire bull terrier, swallowed the stick by accident while on a walk with her owner in fields behind his home.
As celebrations go, it will be a muted one. But at 9pm on Thursday evening, anyone who tried and failed to make a fortune in the dotcom boom can be forgiven for sitting back, pouring themselves a glass of millennium bubbly, and thinking about what might have been.
As part of its agenda towards enterprise development, community rehabilitation and public works, the Business Trust has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Department of Public Works and pumped R100-million into the Expanded Public Works Programme, the trust’s chief operating officer, Brian Whittaker, said on Thursday.
Pressure cookers and rice steamers, essential tools of the Cuban kitchen, are the weapons in Fidel Castro’s latest battle to reassert control over the nation’s economy — while still making the island’s housewives happy. The plan ”will do away with the rustic kitchen,” Castro told top members of the Federation of Cuban Women.
A tiger in a Ukrainian zoo killed a woman trying to clean the animal’s cage by mistake, Interfax news agency reported on Thursday. The incident occurred at the Kiev city zoo after the 23-year-old woman confused enclosure doors, entered the cage of a tiger known to be dangerous, and began collecting trash.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu has moved to bury the hatchet with President Thabo Mbeki after Tutu’s criticism of the government last year, South African Broadcasting Corporation radio news reported on Thursday. Tutu said the row was part of pain of South Africa’s new democracy, the station said.
Heated exchanges marked the South African Human Rights Commission’s announcement on Thursday that boom gates are constitutional. The commission found that the Constitution lets local authorities apply legislation that allows the closures, but it is concerned that there is no adequate monitoring of the closures.
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The second witness for the defence in the Schabir Shaik fraud and corruption trial, Zandile Mdhladhla, told the Durban High Court on Thursday that the Jacob Zuma Education Trust Fund did not qualify for funding from the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund. However, ”we received money from Mr Mandela as a person”, said Mdhladhla.
Namibia’s High Court on Thursday ordered a recount of ballots from the November parliamentary elections that were overwhelmingly won by the ruling South West Africa People’s Organisation party. But the judge refused to grant a request from two opposition parties that the elections should be declared null and void due to irregularities.