A small town in New England has won the competition to host the premiere of <i>The Simpsons Movie</i>. Springfield, Vermont, which shares its name with the cartoon hometown of Homer Simpson and his dysfunctional family, beat off competition from 13 other Springfields across the United States to claim the prize.
Thousands of pregnant women have been tested for HIV since Liberia introduced a programme to prevent mother-to-child transmission eight months ago.
Envelopes with cash have been left in public restrooms across Japan, officials said on Wednesday, as the bizarre form of anonymous charity turned into a nationwide phenomenon. A day after two small cities on the main island of Honshu reported finding cash in men’s rooms in public buildings, officials across Japan disclosed that they too had discovered such mysterious packages.
The question of who smoked what and with whom is making Australian politicians dizzy after a rock singer said he had shared marijuana joints with an MP and visiting U2 star Bono. Silverchair singer Daniel Johns said in a radio interview this week that he had been invited with his actress wife, Natalie Imbruglia, and MP Peter Garrett to a house rented by Bono in Sydney last November.
"When I attended film school, it dawned on me and my fellow students that the key to a successful pitch lay in addressing the salient issues of distribution," writes lawyer and film aficionado Charl Groenewald in the introduction to his book <i>The Laws of Movie-Making</i>.
The mysterious late-night calls began a few days after Los Angeles student Shira Barlow replaced a cellphone that she had dropped into a toilet in February. Suddenly Barlow began getting calls from strangers wishing "Paris" a happy birthday and requesting access to the most exclusive Hollywood nightclubs.
A boy called Hell has been barred from enrolling in a Catholic school in Australia because his surname jarred with its religious teachings, the child’s father said on Monday. The youngster’s dad, Alex Hell (45), has expressed outrage after the primary school in the southern city of Melbourne allegedly refused to admit his son, Max.
A female Muslim juror has been arrested in Britain after allegedly listening to an MP3 player under her <i>hijab</i> headscarf during a murder trial, police said on Monday. The woman was meant to be helping try the case of a pensioner accused of bludgeoning his wife to death after 50 years of marriage.
A 70-year-old woman was left bruised and bleeding following a clash with a police officer in western Utah state. The woman’s offence? Failing to water her front lawn properly. Violence flared when a police officer issued her a ticket for failing to maintain the garden of her home in Orem, 72km south of Salt Lake City.
I will be resigning from the public service at the end of June 2007. Please advise me on what I should do with my pension. Should I open a retirement annuity, according to this week’s article? The article also spoke of the split, which is transferring half of the money into the annuity and cashing the rest, writes reader Phuti.
At the time of writing, I am a mere week and a half from joining my partner in marriage. Elopement is looking decidedly attractive. When we first started planning, nine months ago, we decided we wanted something small, intimate and, preferably, cheap. This is more or less what we are getting, but it is certainly not going to be the budget affair we thought it would be, writes Jocelyn Newmarch.
Contamination of the Aids drug Viracept created panic among HIV-positive Zambians on antiretroviral therapy. Roche, the Swiss manufacturers, announced that some batches of Viracept had been accidentally contaminated with mesylate, prompting a recall of the product.
Thousands of pregnant women have been tested for HIV since Liberia introduced a programme to prevent mother-to-child HIV transmissions eight months ago, according to the National Aids Control Programme.
Internet search giant Google said on Monday it has agreed to buy web security firm Postini for $625-million in cash, expanding its business software applications. Google plans to operate the company as a subsidiary in its Google Apps (applications) unit, which includes its email, calendar and documents applications.
The circumstances that led to Nedbank’s loss of market share and the manner in which the retail business’s turnaround is being achieved offer compelling evidence of Nedbank’s significantly different profile within the South African banking landscape, says Nedbank Retail MD Rob Shuter.
Boeing has raised the curtain on its first fully assembled 787 to an audience of thousands who packed into its widebody assembly plant for the plane’s extravagantly orchestrated premiere. The giant factory doors opened wide as the plane slowly moved into view to the strains of a theme song composed specially for the 787.
With south/south trade strategically growing in importance, India is shaping into one of South Africa’s most important trading partners. Already we have witnessed the successful entry into South Africa of Indian conglomerates such as the Tata group and Ranbaxy, while South African companies seem set to make their mark in India.
Getting into the headquarters of JHC, the Johannesburg Housing Company, is like breaking into Fort Knox, with access control devices on myriad doors. In fact, as we pass through the last door, I realise it actually is Fort Knox — at least according to its name plate. The man at the centre of this African fort is Taffy Adler, JHC’s chief executive. And JHC’s objective could not be more dissimilar to its office’s American namesake.
This is not a good time to be in a deckchair on a pavement on Fifth Avenue next to Central Park. It’s hot and disgustingly muggy and when you are not sitting in a pool of sweat, you are being drenched by torrential rain accompanied by flashes of lightning. The conditions in New York are so extreme they are almost biblical, which is appropriate because the people gathered on the pavement are here on the 21st-century equivalent of a pilgrimage.
Delegates to the recent ANC policy conference considered a discussion document entitled Transformation of the Judicial System. It describes the present position, followed by assertions of the need for change and, finally, questions for delegates — the answers to which are provided in the assertions.
When the Confederation of Indian Industry decided to set up an India Business Forum (IBF) here last March, they were pleasantly surprised to discover that as many as 36 Indian companies have resident offices in South Africa. Surprised because, since 1948, India had enforced economic sanctions against the apartheid regime with such vigour that a flourishing trade in commodities like jute and tea had come to a grinding halt.
In the article "Landowners haul miners over the coals" (22 June) Mr Koos Pretorius is quoted as saying that the Department of Water Affairs ordered Xstrata’s Onverdacht Colliery to stop operating as it did not have the necessary permits or a water license. This statement is factually incorrect. Xstrata has a valid mining licence for its mining activities at Onverdacht Colliery.
An award-winning sports reporter for the South African Broadcasting Corporation has been killed in a car accident, officials said on Sunday. The public broadcaster reported that veteran journalist Maseru Koaho died in a car crash in Potchefstroom, west of Johannesburg, on Saturday night.
Egypt has banned all female circumcision after the death this week of a 12-year-old girl undergoing the widely practised procedure. Budour Ahmad Shaker died from an overdose of anaesthetic at a private clinic in Minya province in upper Egypt during the $9 operation.
It’s the biggest riddle of the world’s longest-running cartoon series — exactly where is Springfield, home of yellow-skinned social misfit Homer Simpson, his big-haired wife Marge and their children Bart, Lisa and Maggie? Despite hints over 18 years, the producers have always kept the location a closely guarded secret.
When a head of state makes more headlines for running round the block than running the country, it brings a new meaning to "fit for office". The French President, Nicolas Sarkozy, is seen so often pounding the pavement that satirists call him "Nike-olas".
Global warming is radically changing the face of Mount Everest, the sons of the men who first reached its summit 54 years ago said in an interview published on Friday. The sons of Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay told British newspaper the <i>Independent</i> that their fathers would no longer recognise the world’s highest mountain.
Not long ago it was French football great Zinedine Zidane who was the focus of their bid for celebrity — and a few laughs. Now, it is the peloton of the Tour de France — and their notorious links with the banned blood booster EPO (erythropoietin) — which is the subject of musical group La Plage’s latest offering.
The head of China’s environmental agency has blamed the rising number of riots, and demonstrations across the country on public anger at pollution. Zhou Shengxian called for a "struggle" against polluters, and said the public refused to accept the increasing degradation of the environment.
By delivering on their promise, and changing the definition of a cellphone. That’s what the original iPod managed in the MP3 player world, filled to that point with players of limited features, lame design and duff PC integration. The cellphone industry is, of course, more mature than the MP3 player industry was in 2001.
Once upon a time, chocolate lovers had it easy. Lunchbar or Bar One? Flake or Sweety Pie? Or, perhaps, an Inside Story. Splashing out meant buying a box of Cadbury’s Milk Tray or Côte d’Or for your hostess at a dinner party. No longer. A sustained economic boom and growing affluence has seen an explosion of premium chocolates available in South Africa.
With strikes looming in the gold mining, coal mining, metal and other major industries, potentially involving hundreds of thousands of workers, 2007 is already the most strike-plagued year since the 1994 election. Jackie Kelly, of the labour consultancy Andrew Levy Employment, disclosed this week that 11-million working days had been lost to industrial action this year.