A dog was admitted to a veterinary clinic in Austria on the weekend, barely able to stand on his own four paws and reeking "like a beer hall", a newspaper reported on Monday. Dingo, a three-year-old Labrador weighing 40kg, was a pitiful sight when his owner, a hunter, brought him in to the surgery, a newspaper quoted vet Karl Hofbauer as saying.
Nintendo’s Wii outsold rival Sony’s PlayStation 3 (PS3) three-fold in Japan last year, helping the country’s multibillion-dollar video game market to notch up its best-ever year, a survey showed on Monday. Nintendo sold about 3,63-million Wii consoles in its home market in 2007 while Sony sold 1,21-million PS3s, according to magazine publisher Enterbrain.
The acceptance period for global brewing giant SABMiller’s offer for Dutch brewer Koninklijke Grolsch NV (Grolsch) commences at 9am, Amsterdam time on January 8 and will end at 3pm Amsterdam time on February 5, unless extended, the company said on Monday.
World oil prices eased further from the historic $100-a-barrel level on Monday after weak US employment data fanned worries about recession and demand in the world’s biggest energy consumer, dealers said. In afternoon trade, New York’s main contract, light sweet crude for delivery in February, was 71 cents lower at $97,20 a barrel.
A powerful earthquake measuring 6,5 on the Richter Scale hit the Peloponnese region of southern Greece early on Sunday, the geodynamics institute of the Athens observatory reported. There were no immediate reports of casualties. Greece is the European country most prone to earthquakes, with seismic activity accounting for half of the continent’s tremors.
<a href="http://www.mg.co.za/specialreport.aspx?area=zuma_report"><img src="http://www.mg.co.za/ContentImages/243078/zuma.jpg" align=left border=0></a>The National Prosecuting Authority has thrown a powerful new book of charges at African National Congress (ANC) president Jacob Zuma, which includes the "super charge" of racketeering and a slate of new witnesses to testify against the newly elected ANC leader.
<a href="http://www.mg.co.za/specialreport.aspx?area=zuma_report"><img src="http://www.mg.co.za/ContentImages/243078/zuma.jpg" align=left border=0></a>On August 4, if there is no mistrial, postponement or any other unforeseen delay, Jacob Gedleyihlekisa Zuma will be charged with 16 crimes in the Pietermaritzburg High Court alongside Pierre Jean-Marie Robert Moynot of arms company Thint. Moynot, however, will not be an accused himself, but will represent French arms company Thales’s South African affiliates in court.
This is to be the bellwether year for South Africa’s democracy when we either build on the Constitution’s dictate that we live by the rule of its law and the breadth of its vision or we turn that Constitution into a loud-sounding nothing by becoming a nation of populists given to keeping skeletons in cupboards.
The names of three banks and the word "stocks" beat "sex" to become four of the most Googled words in China last year, according to a Google China list seen on Thursday. China Merchants Bank, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China and China Construction Bank ranked second, third and sixth, according to a list supplied by Google China on its website.
South African Nobel peace laureate Desmond Tutu was in Nairobi on Thursday to try to mediate between President Mwai Kibaki and opposition leader Raila Odinga over their election dispute, party officials said. An official from Odinga’s Orange Democratic Movement party said Tutu was expected to try and persuade Odinga to sit down with Kibaki and seek a joint resolution.
Police and security forces went on alert across Sri Lanka on Thursday, hours after the government announced its withdrawal from a tattered ceasefire with Tamil Tiger rebels, security officials said. The already tight security in the capital was further strengthened one day after suspected rebels set off a roadside bomb that killed five and wounded 28.
Patients were evacuated on Wednesday as a renowned cancer hospital in London was ravaged by a major fire that destroyed a large part of its roof, emergency services and witnesses said. No casualties were reported at the Royal Marsden Hospital in west London after dozens of ambulances and firefighters rushed to tackle the blaze in the plush Chelsea district.
An Australian government plan to filter the internet on Wednesday drew criticism from privacy advocates who said it represented the start of state censorship. Communications Minister Stephen Conroy, a member of the Labour team that ousted former prime minister John Howard in November, wants filters in place to shield children from online porn and violence.
Millions staged midnight parties at icon landmarks around the world to see in 2008 but bomb attacks and security fears quickly darkened New Year festivities. More than one million people lined Sydney harbour for fireworks that set off the global party and hundreds of thousands packed Hong Kong streets and historic European venues.
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/ 31 December 2007
The wife of a top sports anchor on Chinese state television has created a buzz in the blogosphere by crashing an Olympic media event — to publicly accuse her husband of adultery. A video clip of Zhang Bin’s wife, Hu Ziwei, commandeering a microphone at a presentation of its coverage plans was easily one of the most viewed items on a Chinese video site on Monday.
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/ 31 December 2007
Nii Narku Quaynor in December became the first African winner of the prestigious 2007 Postel Prize from the Internet Society, the international body that regulates the technical standards of the internet. On December 22, Quaynor, a professor at Cape-Coast University in Ghana, participated in a weekly pan-African Skypecast press conference.
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/ 30 December 2007
Tens of thousands of people are expected to take part in a giant New Year’s kiss in front of St Mark’s Basilica in the romantic Italian city of Venice, authorities said this week. "New Year 2008 in Venice will become the New Year of love," the Venice municipality said on its website.
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/ 29 December 2007
Zimbabweans formed queues at banks on Saturday to beat a December 31 deadline to hand in a currency series phased out by the central bank. Reserve Bank chief Gideon Gono declared that the Z$200 000 note would become worthless as he introduced three new banknotes in a bid to tackle a shortage of the local currency in the country.
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/ 29 December 2007
China on Saturday ruled full democracy in Hong Kong by 2012 but flagged universal suffrage for 2017 in a long-awaited decision on democratic reform for the former British colony, officials said. The decision is likely to upset democrats who had been pushing for 2012 as a deadline for changes in the way the chief executive and the legislature are chosen.
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/ 29 December 2007
Former Guantánamo Bay inmate David Hicks walked free from an Australian jail after completing a sentence for supporting terrorism on Saturday, vowing not to let down those who got him home. More than six years after he was captured in Afghanistan, the so-called "Aussie Taliban" was escorted from Adelaide’s maximum security Yalata jail.
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/ 28 December 2007
World oil traded near $97 a barrel in Asia on Friday, its highest level in a month, following the assassination of Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, dealers said. They said the rise in prices was also supported by a United States report showing a higher-than-expected drop in US crude stockpiles.
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/ 28 December 2007
Police said on Friday they were waiting to question a man who had to be rescued by firefighters after he got stuck in the chimney of an Australian outback pub. Officers believe the man — too late to be making a Christmas delivery — may have been an incompetent burglar who got wedged into the tight spot as he tried to break into the premises.
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/ 27 December 2007
The retail price of all grades of petrol will remain unchanged on Wednesday January 2 from a previous increase of 43 cents a litre, the Department of Minerals and Energy announced on Thursday. The retail price of a litre of 95 octane unleaded petrol in Gauteng remains at R7,47, and R7,23 at the coast — new highs set in December.
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/ 25 December 2007
Japan’s leading mobile phone operator NTT DoCoMo, trying to fight off resurgent competitors, will tie up with United States search-engine giant Google to upgrade its services, a report said Tuesday. DoCoMo will incorporate Google’s search and email features into its popular "i-mode" internet service as part of a broader alliance.
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/ 25 December 2007
Christians around the world celebrated Christmas on Tuesday as the Catholic leader in the Holy Land pleaded for peace in the Middle East and Pope Benedict XVI spoke against selfishness. Iraqi Christians meanwhile celebrated a fearful Christmas in the shadow of suicide bombings and sectarian violence.
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/ 24 December 2007
China has sanctioned state-owned companies to examine three possible strategies to block BHP Billiton’s proposed takeover of mining giant Rio Tinto, a report said Monday. Strategies include forming a domestic consortium to bid for Rio Tinto, a joint bid by domestic and foreign firms, or purchasing Rio shares on the open market.
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/ 21 December 2007
The New Year’s resolution is best understood as a direct backlash to the annual marathon of compulsory debauchery known as the New Year’s Eve party.
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/ 21 December 2007
Your guide to the best the big screen has to offer this holiday season.
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/ 21 December 2007
From death threats to deadly falls, many quirky news items in 2007 dealt with the bizarre things than animals get up to around the world. We round up some of the most entertaining items, concerning travelling hedgehogs, chocolate eggs and shooting dogs.
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/ 21 December 2007
Thabo Mbeki has often been accused in post-apartheid South Africa of carrying a racial chip on his shoulder. I once asked one of the only white ANC cadres billeted in Lusaka in the Eighties if he ever encountered anything like this in exile. He responded thoughtfully by comparing Mbeki with Chris Hani.
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/ 20 December 2007
South Africa’s producer price inflation (PPI) slowed to 9,1% year-on-year in November, below forecasts, from a 9,5% rise in October. On a monthly basis, PPI rose by 0,3% after a 1,1% jump in October. Economists had forecast that annual PPI would come in at 9,7%, while the monthly rate of increase was seen at 0,8%.
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/ 20 December 2007
South Africa’s second-largest housing market, the Western Cape, continued to have the lowest house price inflation in the country, fresh data showed on Thursday. Price inflation in the province dropped from 12% in July to 11% in August, the Lightstone residential property index showed.