The world record for the biggest ensemble of spoon players has been set in Britain, the organiser of the event announced on Tuesday. Amateur street-theatre group Stripey-Jumper rounded up 345 people to bash out a version of pub favourite <i>Knees Up Mother Brown</i> before an eagle-eyed panel of adjudicators.
South African telecommunications company Telkom said on Tuesday that it will comply fully with the legal requirement prescribing mandatory 10-digit dialling and the replacement of 09 with 00 as the international dialling prefix. This is in line with the minister of communication’s promulgation of a numbering plan prescribed by the Independent Communication Authority of South Africa.
Trade union Solidarity, in a submission to the Competition Tribunal on Tuesday, said it was greatly concerned about the fact that mining company Kumba Resources’ workers were not consulted on the process of unbundling Kumba. Kumba spokesperson Trevor Arran wasn’t immediately available to comment.
Trade union Solidarity on Tuesday announced its decision to join the Confederation of South African Workers’ Unions (Consawu). Consawu, which was founded in March 2003, currently has 23 trade unions as members, of which Solidarity is the largest group. Consawu’s total membership is almost 290 000 members.
Fiona Macleod and Gavin Smitsdorp are well on their way to an eco-friendly home — and a cheaper, cooler life.
The director general of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), Pascal Lamy, said on Monday that he was recommending an indefinite suspension of the troubled five-year round of global trade talks. "The only course of action I can recommend is to suspend the negotiations across the round as a whole," Lamy told journalists, without setting a date for restarting the talks.
Burundi’s last active rebel group is demanding to have more than half of the slots in the country’s army in peace talks with the government that have repeatedly faltered on the issue of the military, officials said Monday. Representatives of the National Liberation Forces are also demanding the post of the national army chief as a pre-condition to reaching a permanent ceasefire.
The Congress of South African Trade Union’s (Cosatu) suggestion that South Africa should maintain high trade barriers for the purpose of developing its export sectors — purely because that is how developed countries did it in their day — is ludicrous, says the official opposition Democratic Alliance.
Power cuts that have plunged most parts of Zimbabwe into darkness could worsen during the next few weeks following electricity supply interruptions from the Democratic Republic of Congo from where Zesa Holdings imports 100 megawatts, the state-owned <i>Herald</i> newspaper said on Monday.
Forget about Japanese technology. Japan’s latest contribution to the war on terrorism is tiny fish, which will be deployed to detect contamination of water supplies. Light-orange rice fish, which are about 4cm long and are commonly kept as pets in Japan, will alert authorities if their movement is irregular.
The first men on the moon had to use a pen to fix a broken switch on their lunar module and return home to earth, British newspaper the <i>Daily Mirror</i> reported on Monday. Neil Armstrong, the first man on the moon, and Buzz Aldrin, his fellow astronaut, accidentally snapped off the switch of a circuit breaker, and found they could not take off without it.
For those who relish looking back on the small, often inconsequential details of their lives, a Japanese company has come up with a "Big Brother" mobile network that makes up where human memory fails. Japan’s number two telecom operator KDDI said on Monday that it had developed a server that keeps a record of the smallest events in a person’s electronic life.
The ambulanceman gave Ali the job of keeping his mother alive. The 12-year-old did what he could. "Mama, mama, don’t go to sleep," he sobbed, gently patting her face beneath her chin. Behind her black veil, her eyelids were slowly sinking. "I’m going to die," she sighed. "Don’t say that, mama," Ali begged, and then slid to the ground in tears.
Roman Abramovich’s life appears tailor-made for a Robert Ludlum novel. One of the new breed of Russian oligarchs and the owner of England’s Chelsea Football Club, Abramovich is a billionaire many times over. South Africa will soon be adding to his asset base, as one of his companies, Evraz, will be taking over Anglo American’s 79% stake in Highveld Steel & Vanadium.
Britain dramatically broke ranks with United States President George Bush on Saturday night over the Lebanon crisis, publicly criticising Israel’s military tactics and urging America to "understand" the price being paid by ordinary Lebanese civilians.
Microsoft on Friday confirmed rumours it planned to launch an "iPod killer," saying its challenge to Apple Computer’s dominant MP3 player would hit the market this year. Microsoft’s new "music and entertainment project" was called "Zune," the software giant’s general manager of marketing, Chris Stephenson, revealed in a statement.
Researchers believe they have found a key insight into déjà vu, the eerie sensation of seeing something that has already been experienced, the <i>New Scientist</i> magazine reports. Experiments suggest that déjà vu can be triggered independently, without a real memory to prompt it.
Mike Huckabee, the rock-playing Governor of Arkansas, will pardon Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards for his 1975 reckless driving charge in the American state, the governor’s spokesperson said on Thursday. "The governor is in the process right now to give a pardon to him," said Alice Stewart.
A New Zealand policewoman is receiving counselling after the discovery she had been moonlighting as a prostitute, but has kept her job on the force, police said on Thursday. The Auckland officer had taken up part-time work as a prostitute "for a limited time", said police media communications manager Jon Neilson.
Three-quarters of British sport fishermen would rather go fishing than go to bed with their partners, a survey showed on Thursday. More than half of the 1 000 anglers surveyed by bookmaker Totesport also said they would rather catch a record-breaking trout or salmon than spend a night with a supermodel.
A man who cut off his own penis in a drunken bet had his organ stitched back on Thursday by Latvian doctors, the first such operation in the country’s history, Latvian public television reported. The 30-year-old man made a bet with his friend for 1 000 lats ($1 800) that he would cut off his penis.
The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) said in a statement on Friday that the chief magistrate of Thabazimbi had found platinum miner Northam Platinum guilty of negligence. "This came at the conclusion of an inquest looking into the death of nine mineworkers at the mine," NUM said.
Naspers division Media24 has merged its digital arm with MWeb Studios, the division responsible for the development of web-based services, to create the continent’s biggest online business, <i>24.com</i>, which aims to dominate the digital arena in Africa by offering visitors the best online content and services.
Brazil’s tarnished crown jewel of aviation Varig fell to a United States-Brazilian investor group for a knockdown $24-million — saving the once-proud national carrier from liquidation. The new owner announced an immediate "temporary" halt to all 25 international and national flights except those between Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo.
For some time now I have been struggling to keep my spirits up, stay focussed on the positive and live in the state of coruscating optimism that any balanced citizen should be feeling about contemporary life. "Just look around you," said a friend, "and you’ll see there’s no real reason for anyone to feel edgy or depressed.
The Department of Foreign Affairs said on Friday that it had been advised by its embassy in Athens of the safe arrival of South Africans in Cyprus on board a British ship. The 11 South Africans were evacuated from Lebanon as Israel continued to pound the country in a bloody assault against Hezbollah.
A South African container ship, the <i>MV Umfolozi</i>, has been stolen from Walvis Bay, media reports said on Friday. The ship had been docked in Walvis Bay since colliding with a South African-registered dredger, the <i>MV Ingwenya</i>, in September. The stolen vessel was believed to have sailed north into Angolan waters.
The United States this week said it would welcome efforts by former Tanzanian president Benjamin Mkapa to mediate in Zimbabwe’s crisis only if he was able to convince President Robert Mugabe to accept responsibility for his country’s crisis. Mkapa would also have to persuade Mugabe to accept sweeping political and economic reforms.
Director General of Health Thami Mseleku has instructed the Medicines Control Council (MCC) to take its hands off controversial vitamin salesman Matthias Rath.
MCC chairperson Peter Eagles revealed this week that Mseleku had instructed the MCC to refer all Rath-related issues to his office and not to discuss or investigate them further.
Many drivers don’t realise that should their car be involved in an accident due to lack of maintenance, their insurer is unlikely to pay out. "The insured must take all reasonable steps to safeguard the vehicle from loss and damage and maintain it in an efficient condition at all times to remain covered," says the head of Santam’s claims administrative services.
Act 1, Scene I. A desert place, courtesy of Operation Murambatsvina. Thunder and lightning. Enter three Zimbabwean Witches … “When shall we three meet again, in thunder, lightning, or in rain?” “How about after <i>Generations</i>?” “That will be ere the set of the sun. Sevenish.”