The councillor responsible for Rome’s traffic, Mario di Carlo, has said he intends making owners of sports utility vehicles (SUVs) pay â,¬1 000 each year — more than triple the normal rate for a permit to enter the historic centre. His announcement is the latest move in a growing, Europe-wide backlash against four-wheel drives.
Using the bathroom in an upmarket New York restaurant does not come cheap and diners often find themselves not so much spending a penny as spending a dollar — or more. But any resentment at the fees charged by acquisitive bathroom attendants was tempered this week.
United States President George Bush on Friday became the first president since Herbert Hoover in the Depression to preside over a loss of jobs when the last set of employment figures published before next month’s election showed only a modest improvement in September.
Australian Prime Minister John Howard is on course for a fourth consecutive victory in Saturday’s general elections, with polls on Friday night suggesting he could even return with an increased majority despite a bruising campaign. All but a handful of polls over the course of the campaign have forecast a victory for the government.
Up to 4 000 asylum seekers drown at sea every year as they flee persecution or poverty, according to newly published British research. Fear of terrorism and public scares about mass migration have led to more vigilant coastal patrols and an international climate that discourages captains from stopping to help small boats in distress.
Ten people were injured on Friday when a parcel bomb exploded outside the Indonesian embassy in Paris, the first such attack in the French capital for nearly a decade. The device, planted beside an outside wall of the three-storey, 19th-century building in the smart 16th arrondissement, exploded just after 5am.
Pools of dried blood, shredded bathing suits, charred cars and rubble were left behind on Friday after a car bomb rocked Egypt’s Taba Hilton hotel, killing a still-undetermined number of people. The attacks there late on Thursday night and at a backpacker’s resort left at least 30 people dead and more than 100 wounded
Ken Bigley, the Briton whose caged and shackled image was broadcast around the world pleading for his life, and whose ordeal cast a pall over Downing Street as his family begged directly to British Prime Minister Tony Blair for help, has been murdered by his kidnappers. A video showing his beheading emerged on Friday.
Israel’s military intelligence chief on Friday blamed al-Qaeda for the hotel bombings that killed at least 30 people, mostly Israeli tourists and Egyptian workers, in Sinai. An emergency session of Ariel Sharon’s Cabinet was told that the main attack, a car bomb, bore all the hallmarks of groups linked to al-Qaeda.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?cg=BreakingNews-Africa&ao=123413">’I saw parts of bodies, some fingers'</a>
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/pd.asp?cg=BreakingNews-InternationalNews&ao=123378">Al-Qaeda offshoot claims blasts</a>
The Lions provisionally booked a home semifinal berth with a hard-fought 44-27 Absa Currie Cup victory over the never-say-die Pumas in Witbank on Friday night.
The six-tries-to-three win gave the Lions a valuable bonus point and took them to second spot on the log with 45 points, but it seems they will need a minor miracle to hold on to that position.