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/ 20 October 2006
The London home and the offices of an arms broker linked to a supplier in South Africa’s multibillion-rand arms deal have been raided by Britain’s Serious Fraud Office, it was reported on Thursday. The Guardian said the raids were part of a probe into corruption allegations against Britain’s biggest military hardware exporter, BAE Systems.
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/ 20 October 2006
A day after United States President George Bush conceded for the first time that the US may have reached the equivalent of a Tet offensive in Iraq, the Pentagon on Thursday admitted defeat in its strategy of securing Baghdad. On Thursday the number of US troops killed since October 1 rose to 73, deepening the sense that the country is trapped in an unwinnable situation.
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/ 20 October 2006
An Australian prisoner shed 14kg so he could slip between the bars of his cell and escape, a court in Sydney was told on Friday. Robert Cole (37) spent three days at large after escaping in January despite breaking his leg when he jumped from a high perimeter wall.
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/ 20 October 2006
”Like madmen they were,” my friend’s mother said. It was the late 1970s and she was explaining why she had banned chess grandmasters from her house. They were an émigré family from the Eastern bloc, the father was a talented chess player and for years the house had been a port of call for visiting checkmate greats. But not any more.
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/ 20 October 2006
The Paris Club of creditor nations agreed on Thursday to cancel almost all of Malawi’s debt, reducing the small Southern African nation’s remaining debt to just -million (R67-million). National representatives to the informal group, which meets monthly in Paris, agreed to recommend to their governments that about -million in debt owed by the impoverished country be cancelled.
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/ 20 October 2006
New Zealand and South Africa will strengthen cultural relations including negotiating a film co-production agreement, Prime Minister Helen Clark announced on Friday. Clark, who is also Minister of Arts, Culture and Heritage, was speaking after talks with South Africa’s Deputy President Phumzile Mlabo-Ngcuka.
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/ 20 October 2006
The overriding theme of our first directors general report card is that it is a hard job to do. Why? Most directors general are new; many have been in office for less than a year. The only director general who has spent more than one term in office is Frank Chikane, the head of the Presidency. Have a look at our assessments of Chikane and his colleagues.
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/ 20 October 2006
Mozambique President Armando Guebuza on Thursday called for a probe into the 1986 plane crash which killed the country’s founding leader Samora Machel, a mystery often blamed on apartheid agents. ”I want to reiterate the commitment of the government to find out the truth on the cause of the plane crash,” Guebuza said.
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/ 20 October 2006
Senior officials of the National Prosecuting Authority have expressed fears that it is engaged in a cover-up of the extent to which its staff looted at least R1-million from the C-fund, set up to pay off informers. The Mail & Guardian is in possession of a top-secret dossier, prepared in December 2004, containing information relating to the alleged misuse of funds by more than 20 officials.
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/ 20 October 2006
King Juan Carlos of Spain has become the latest world leader to show off his ”hunting” prowess by shooting a booze-addled tame bear, it was claimed on Thursday. The monarch allegedly gunned down the tipsy bear after it was released into his path by handlers.