North Korea directed its people to hoist the national flag and await a state message on television on Sunday, a Japanese newspaper said, amid reports the North was planning a new missile test. South Korea’s Yonhap news agency said North Korea’s reported instruction might not be linked to the missile launch, saying it could be preparations for another national event.
At least 19 people were killed across Iraq on Friday, including 11 in Baghdad when a suicide bomber blew himself up inside a massive Shi’ite mosque despite a security crackdown in the capital, police said. The blast, which also wounded 25 people, came just an hour before the main weekly Muslim prayers.
The worst thing about having old friends is that they go and die on you. When they do, strands of a web of common experience die with them. You also lose what might be called the shorthand of your friendship; how you could talk to each other without ever having to explain why, what or wherefore.
Islamic militias secured the backing of influential clan elders overnight to set up a new system of governance for swathes of southern Somalia, which the Islamists now control, an elder said on Friday. Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, the head of the Joint Islamic Courts militia, sealed a deal with the traditional community leaders in Jowhar.
The Serbian government said on Thursday it recognised the independence of Montenegro, after the tiny Balkan state voted last month in an historic referendum to break away from Belgrade. The Serbian Parliament decided 10 days ago to proclaim independence after the referendum in Montenegro, its last remaining ally from the former Yugoslavia.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Thursday urged rival factions to reach an agreement that would allow his people to break the international isolation that has gripped them since Hamas took office. Abbas said he was optimistic the various parties would reach an agreement on a statehood document during a new round of talks in Gaza.
Saab AB of Sweden and South Africa’s Denel have agreed to create a new aerostructures company in South Africa which will compete on international markets for design, manufacturing, and assembly orders in the civil and defence aerostructures fields.
Sri Lanka’s Tamil Tiger rebels denied involvement in Thursday’s bus bombing that killed at least 64 passengers and said the blast had been aimed at discrediting them. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam rejected government charges that they carried out the morning attack near Kebitigollewa town in the North-Central Province and in turn pointed a finger at the government.
If we were to ask young people who the youth leaders of today are, we would most likely come up with names such as African National Congress Youth League president Fikile Mbalula, Young Communist League national secretary Buti Manamela and … well, who else? They are certainly among the loudest voices we hear purporting to speak for the youth of the country, but where are the others?
European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana said on Wednesday he had held "constructive" talks with Iran’s main nuclear negotiator in his first contacts with the Iranians since he visited Tehran last week. "I had a phone conversation today [Wednesday] with Mr Ari Larijani. It was a constructive conversation," Solana told reporters in Brussels.
A 53-year-old man climbing a fruit tree in a village in northern Malaysia had a narrow escape when he was shot and wounded by a friend who mistook him for a monkey, a report said on Tuesday. The man was putting protective coverings on jackfruits in an orchard owned by his friend.
A rat that bumbled into one of Cambodia’s largest power plants was blamed for blacking out the entire capital, Phnom Penh, and much of surrounding Kandal province over the weekend, a power official said on Tuesday. Millions were cast into darkness on Sunday night.
A handful of Mentos candy dropped in a Diet Coke bottle produces an explosive soda geyser — and a multitude of internet videos of giddy people trying the experiment in backyards and bathtubs. Hundreds of videos have sprung up of people slipping Mentos into soda bottles and watching the Coke fountain jet about 2m high.
A new centre in Botswana is piloting some innovative strategies to address the emotional and medical needs of HIV/Aids healthcare providers.
Open source is alive and well in South Africa’s biggest township, Soweto. Bongani Hlope carries the flag high, planning a <i>tsotsitaal</i> translation for Linux to make it more accessible for his neighbours. By day, he’s a Java developer at health-insurance giant Discovery Health.
The European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company (EADS), builder of Airbus jets, plunged into a stock market vortex on Wednesday, losing about €7-billion in the first few hours of trading on further production delays to its super-jumbo A380 flagship and a profit warning.
Fifty-five people are dead or missing from flash floods that ripped through south-western China’s Guizhou province early this week, the government said on Wednesday. At least 25 people were confirmed dead from the flooding in mountainous areas of Guizhou, while another 30 people were missing, the state flood-control headquarters reported.
Pressure is piling on Zimbabwe’s central bank to depreciate the official exchange rate amid analyst projections that rising inflation could drag the price of the local dollar on the unofficial parallel market in coming weeks to more than 420 000 against the American dollar.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said on Tuesday he has given a green light to a transfer of weapons to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s personal security force so it can tackle Hamas. The light weapons, from Jordan, are to enable Abbas "to cope with Hamas", the hard-line Islamist group that leads the Palestinian government, Olmert said.
South African President Thabo Mbeki will visit Sudan next week to evaluate the peace process in the war-ravaged western Darfur region, Deputy Foreign Minister Aziz Pahad said on Tuesday. Mbeki is to meet with Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir and Vice-President Salva Kirr during the one-day visit on Tuesday.
Drinking coffee may shield the liver from the ravages of alcohol, according to a long-term study released on Monday. A study of more than 125 000 people found that the risk of developing alcoholic cirrhosis of the liver dropped with each cup of coffee they drank per day.
Indonesia on Tuesday downgraded its top alert on Mount Merapi volcano as scientists said they no longer believe an eruption is imminent. Merapi — whose name means "Mountain of Fire" — was put on red alert on May 13 and its activity has fluctuated since then. It has declined substantially since Friday when part of a lava dome forming at its peak collapsed.
The number of PCs in use in South Africa will pass the five-million mark for the first time this year, according to a new study released on Tuesday. Booming sales in PCs means not only more people than ever before are using new PCs, but also that PCs already in the field will remain in use for a longer period.
There is likely to be a major sell-off of the JSE over the next few months, says Mark Wurr, head of trading at brokerage firm Global Trader. While most of this will be foreigners taking profits in a market that ramped up more than 70% in a year, the market will settle down again once all the froth is out, providing buying opportunities later in the year.
An African woman recently asked me why I didn’t just call a local, supposedly black company, with feminist credentials to boot, to do what the traditional removal companies — Stuttafords, stuff like that — would charge me a fortune to do when I had to move house. So I did.
A blind Belgian man on Saturday claimed a place in the record books after completing a tour of France in a light aeroplane. Luc Costermans, a 41-year-old former businessman blinded two years ago in an accident, said he hoped to make it into the <i>Guinness World Records</i> book for his tour of the country, completed on Friday.
Two young brothers aged 10 and six drove for more than 100km along one of Australia’s busiest roads to visit their grandfather, police said on Monday. The pair reached speeds of up to 90kph as they raced along the Newell highway in their grandmother’s station wagon, shocking fellow motorists who alerted the police.
Banking group Absa plans to spend R80-million on the upgrade and expansion of its automated teller machines (ATMs) and network of kiosks in the current financial year to the end of December 2006. The expansion will comprise 350 new ATMs, 115 self-service kiosks (non-cash terminals) and 250 internet kiosks.
Jeremy Cronin’s article ("What kind of presidency," May 26) should kick off a real debate. I have always enjoyed reading Cronin and believe his views are sobering for a developmental state like South Africa. However, in this article, he stumbles. To blame South Africa’s problems on a powerfully managed presidency does not add up.
An Egyptian poultry trader found a four-legged cock among chickens he bought from a farm, the official Mena news agency reported on Saturday. The cock, which also had two excretory tracts, weighed 2,5kg, said the man from Kafr Saqr in al-Sharqiya province, 86km north-east of Cairo.
North Korea’s Air Force Command on Sunday threatened to "punish" the United States for its spy flights over the communist state, recalling the fate of a US Navy plane it shot down 37 years ago. In a statement carried by the Korean Central News Agency, the air force said that a US RC-135 reconnaissance plane had made flights over its territorial waters on June 6, 8 and 10.
Indonesia’s Mount Merapi continued to spew lava and searing clouds of gas and ash on Sunday as geologists maintained the top danger alert on the smouldering volcano. Despite losing a huge chunk of the lava dome forming at its peak on Friday, which lessened the danger of a major eruption, geologists said the volcano still posed a threat.