The United States military surge in Iraq, designed to turn around the course of the war, appears to be failing as senior US officers admit they need yet more troops and new figures show a sharp increase in the victims of death squads in Baghdad. In the first 11 days of this month, there have already been 234 bodies dumped around the capital.
Pakistan’s biggest city was tense but quiet on Sunday a day after at least 34 people were killed when pro-government and opposition activists clashed as the country’s suspended top judge tried to meet supporters. A judicial crisis over government attempts to remove Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry has escalated into the worst political street violence Pakistan has seen since the 1980s.
The government plans to force parents serving on the country’s 26 000 school governing bodies to take responsibility for poor performances by pupils. The proposed changes to the Schools Act would allow education departments to give the parent bodies warnings and fire them if results were unacceptably low.
South Africa recalled former captain Bob Skinstad and included four uncapped players in a 46-man World Cup training squad on Saturday. The 30-year-old Skinstad came out of retirement earlier this year in a bid to win a place in the Springbok squad for the first time since 2003.
Taiwanwill choose its top China negotiator as its next premier for lack of other job candidates as the former premier leaves to ease tension in the ruling party ahead of the 2008 presidential race. Chang Chun-hsiung, chairperson of the Straits Exchange Foundation, will replace Su Tseng-chang, who announced on Saturday he would step down.
Hundreds of Taiwanese, Chinese and South Africans gathered to pay their last respects to murdered journalist Gino Feng in Edenvale on Saturday. ”He was my good teacher,” said Jason Wu, who has taken over from Feng as editor-in-chief of the China Express. ”This thing has shocked the Chinese community.”
Australian Prime Minister John Howard has ordered the country’s national cricket team to cancel their planned tour of Zimbabwe later this year. The Australian government had previously outlined its determination to scrap the tour in protest over Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe’s regime.
The Taliban’s top operational commander, Mullah Dadullah, has been killed in a clash in southern Afghanistan, security officials said on Sunday. ”Mullah Dadullah has been killed and his body is in Kandahar,” said Saeed Ansari, spokesperson for the intelligence department.
A major rift between the West and Africa was exposed at the United Nations this weekend as Zimbabwe was controversially elected as head of the United Nations’s main environment body. It seems developing countries voted for Zimbabwe in a direct show of defiance against developed ones.
Business tycoon Tokyo Sexwale said he would ”consider” nomination for the African National Congress presidency at the party’s December conference should he be asked to stand. In January when the Sunday Times reported of Sexwale being approached to run for presidency he dismissed the reports as ”kite-flying”.