Foreign

African Grey turns parish air blue
LONDON -- Pedestrians approaching St Mary's church in Mirfield, northeast England, have been startled to hear wolf-whistles and insults emanating from on high. They discovered the abuse came from an African Grey parrot, which has made its home in...

Alternative menopause supplements 'not proven'
CHICAGO -- With glossy ads and brazen pitches to doctors, the makers of alternative remedies for menopausal symptoms are trying to capitalise on the bad news about hormone supplements. The alternative products include supplements made from soy, b...

Al-Qaeda accused on trial
HAMBURG -- Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden boasted there would be "thousands of dead" in the United States about six months before the September 11 attacks in 2001, one of his former bodyguards told a German court yesterday. At the trial of a Mor...

EU warns Malawi to pay up or lose support
BLANTYRE -- The EU has warned Malawi that it could lose at least e15,5million (about R143,2m) in budgetary support if it does not pay back the e7,4m (about R68,4m) of EU money spent in projects not approved by the union. Wiepke van der Goot, the ...

Italian plane hijacker surrenders on landing
LYON -- A man claiming to be a member of al-Qaeda threatened to blow up an Alitalia plane carrying at least 57 passengers yesterday but surrendered after the jet landed here, officials said. Authorities said all passengers had left the plane and ...

UN team begins Iraqi weapons inspections
AMARIYAH -- International arms monitors searched a military missile-testing range and a possible nuclear site outside Baghdad yesterday, starting a new round of inspections that could determine the future of peace in the Middle East. Inspectors d...

Apartheid lawsuit adds Nestle
ZURICH -- US lawyer Ed Fagan said yesterday he had widened a class action lawsuit against banks and multi-nationals that did business with the apartheid regime in South Africa. He said the lawsuit would now include other Swiss companies, includin...

Cardoso accused denies all
MAPUTO -- A former bank manager who, along with a top businessman, is accused of ordering the killing of Mozambique's top investigative journalist, denied any involvement in the case yesterday. Vicente Ramaya told the Maputo municipal court that ...

No Christmas in Bethlehem
RAMALLAH -- Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat announced yesterday that Christmas celebrations had been cancelled in Bethlehem because of Israel's closure of the holy town. "The most dangerous escalation is the closure of Bethlehem, which will last...

On holy ground
Hindu worshippers perform morning prayers at the river Ganges in Allahabad, India. Allahabad is at the confluence of the holy river Ganges, Yamuna and the mythical underground river Sarawasti and is the place where the dead rest. (AP) ...

Karaoke turn proves fatal
A HANOI man was electrocuted by a faulty microphone as he was preparing to sing karaoke with his mistress in southern Vietnam, police said yesterday. Nguyen Hong Ron, 31, was killed when he plugged a home-adapted cordless microphone into a karaok...

Cage, Lisa to divorce after just four months
ACTOR NICOLAS CAGE has filed for divorce from Lisa Marie Presley less than four months after their romantic wedding in Hawaii. The actor -- filing under his real name, Nicolas Coppola -- cited irreconcilable differences as the reason for the spli...

Tongue lashing
Singer/actress Whitney Houston, left, sticks her tongue out at her husband singer, Bobby Brown, during a court hearing this week in the US. Brown was arrested on an outstanding warrant for a 'driving under the influence' arrest in 1996. He rem...

World briefs
Callas' letters sold ROME -- A set of private letters written by opera diva Maria Callas during the final days of her love affair with Greek billionaire Aristotle Onassis fetched more than R170200 at an auction here yesterday. The top seller, w...