Jack Wild, the child star who earned an Oscar nomination for his portrayal of The Artful Dodger in the 1968 film Oliver! died overnight aged 53 after a battle with cancer, his agent said on Thursday. Wild was just 16 when he dazzled as the pickpocket Dodger in the classic musical based on Charles Dickens’s novel.
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Judge Willem van der Merwe will preside over former deputy president Jacob Zuma’s rape trial on Monday. This comes after Transvaal Judge President Bernard Ngoepe acceded to a request that he recuse himself at the start of the trial in February.
The United States and India have reached an understanding on the implementation of a ”historic” civilian nuclear-energy cooperation deal and sealed agreements in other key areas, Indian Premier Manmohan Singh and US President George Bush announced at a joint press briefing on Thursday.
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The Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) hopes to have posted 90% of the local government election results by sunset, its chairperson Brigalia Bam said on Thursday. A 47% voter turnout had been recorded by 10.45am, Bam said in a briefing at the IEC’s national operations centre in Pretoria.
India’s cricket coach Greg Chappell may be taken to task over comments, in a British newspaper, that Sourav Ganguly wanted to remain captain for financial reasons, an official said on Thursday. Chappell said that he wanted Ganguly out as captain because his batting form was being affected.
Overall HIV prevalence is no longer increasing as significantly as it was in the early 1990s, Minister of Health Manto Tshabalala-Msimang said on Thursday. ”Particularly encouraging is that the prevention messages regarding abstinence, faithfulness and condom use are being taken to heart, especially by the young,” she said.
Britain’s smaller opposition Liberal Democrats were to crown their new chief on Thursday after a leadership contest dogged by scandals involving alcoholism, gay chat lines and male prostitutes. Bookmakers reckoned acting leader Menzies Campbell was just ahead of economics spokesperson Chris Huhne with party president Simon Hughes trailing in the race to lead Britain’s third-biggest party.
The Pentagon is funding research into neural implants, with the ultimate hope of turning sharks into "stealth spies" capable of gliding undetected through the ocean, the British weekly <i>New Scientist</i> says. "The Pentagon hopes to exploit sharks’ natural ability to glide quietly through the water," says the report.
Zimbabwe’s vice-president has said the country’s remaining white farmers would be spared eviction if they toed the line and respected the law, local media reported on Thursday. ”We cannot remove every white man in this country,” Vice-President Joseph Msika was quoted as telling a farmers’ rally.
Foreign visitors to Beijing are often dismayed to have to dodge the phlegm spattering the paths to the Temple of Heaven — and just about everywhere else in the Chinese capital. But with the 2008 Olympics fast approaching, a new government anti-spitting campaign aims to clean up the city’s streets and manners.