Uncluttered by tenses, prepositions and grammatical quirks, Indonesia’s national tongue was once a gift to travellers who quickly grasped the basics. Now a bizarre passion for acronyms is threatening to engulf the language, leaving visitors and even locals lost in translation as more phrases are mangled into this ugly alphabet soup.
Twenty children were shot when police tried to disperse a group of protesters on the N3 highway outside Harrismith on Monday, Free State police said. Captain Paul Kubheka said about 4 500 children descended on the N3 highway on Monday morning to highlight concerns about service delivery in the area.
Growing up in an untidy home can mess up a child’s mind, according to a new American study. Researchers from Pennsylvania State University studied data from about 8 000 three- and four-year-old twins to separate the influence of genes and environment on intelligence.
British scientists have developed the world’s first practical plastic magnet. The breakthrough could lead to new advances in computing and medical applications. The new plastic magnet, developed by the University of Durham’s organic electroactive materials group, is the first in the world to operate at room temperature.
Packs of wild dogs on Australia’s Fraser Island have merged into one ”superpack” that poses a big risk to the thousands of local and foreign tourists who flock to camping sites their each year, a researcher said on Monday. The Fraser Island dingoes have developed a tolerance for each other that is uncharacteristic of their breed.
Police fired shots and foiled an armed robbery of a cash transport in downtown Oslo early on Monday, as the dramatic showdown was captured on video by a crew filming a pornographic movie nearby. ”We heard a lot of noise outside, and went to check,” porn star Thomas ”Rocco” Hansen said on national radio.
The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa) on Monday stated it will now mobilise all 180Â 000 workers in component manufacturing and at petrol stations, car dealers and panel-beating shops for an indefinite strike from September 10, after employers reportedly reneged on a previous in-principle agreement.
Ahmed Idris’s wife is preparing the family’s only meal of the day and there is not enough for their 11 children running around their two little shelters in the middle of the Zamzam refugee camp in Sudan’s Darfur region. The children, some of them with distended bellies, appear malnourished, although their mother says the quantity of the food rations they get has increased considerably in recent months.
Nigerian troops set off for Darfur
Alleged mercenaries Harry Carlse and Lourens Horn have been charged for contravening the Foreign Military Assistance Act. Carlse and Horn arrived home from Zimbabwe on Saturday after a Harare court acquitted them on weapons charges on Friday.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=121328">Forsyth’s fiction close to the facts</a>
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=121284">Trial resumes in Equatorial Guinea</a>
A 155-strong company of Nigerian infantrymen arrived at Abuja aiport on Monday, ready to depart to the war-torn western Sudanese region of Darfur as part of an African Union force protecting ceasefire monitors. ”You are going to Sudan purely to assist our brothers and sisters in restoring a hope that is fast diminishing in them,” said Brigadier General Shekari Biliyak.