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/ 20 November 2007
President Thabo Mbeki’s office said an investigation into the arms deal had already found no wrongdoing on the part of government. This followed a media report based on an addendum to Mbeki’s online letter in his capacity as president of the African National Congress on November 16.
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/ 20 November 2007
Egyptian bloggers, long at the forefront of exposing rights abuses, are planning an online festival of torture videos to run alongside the 31st Cairo Film Festival, local media reported on Tuesday. The parallel festival is the brainchild of a blogger named Walid, the Egyptian Mail reported.
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/ 20 November 2007
United States banking titan Citigroup may have to write off -billion in soured investments including mortgage losses in coming months, a report by Goldman Sachs predicted on Monday. Citigroup, the US’s second-largest bank by market worth, is already reeling from its exposure to the US housing downturn and tighter credit markets.
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/ 20 November 2007
California on Monday launched a lawsuit against 20 companies, accusing them of manufacturing or selling toys with illegal quantities of lead, a statement said. California attorney general Jerry Brown said the firms — including Mattel and Toys ”R” Us — are being sued for knowingly exposing children to potentially dangerous lead levels.
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/ 20 November 2007
Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa has granted amnesty to almost 400 convicts in a bid to decongest his country’s disease-infested prisons, an official announced on Tuesday. Mwanawasa amnestied 14 prisoners who were on life sentences and 379 others who were serving various jail terms, a prisons official, Daniel Chiwela, said.
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/ 20 November 2007
A 5,1-magnitude earthquake jolted Iran’s oil-rich south-west on Tuesday and caused minor damage to buildings, the official Irna news agency said. The quake occurred at 5.20am GMT near the town of Ghaleh-tal in an eastern part of Khuzestan province. About 20 children were hurt as they tried to run out of a school building.
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/ 20 November 2007
Pakistan has freed 3 400 people detained under a state of emergency imposed by President Pervez Musharraf and will soon release the remaining 2 000, the Interior Ministry said on Tuesday. That would leave ”very few” detainees facing criminal charges, a ministry spokesperson said.
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/ 20 November 2007
South Africa and Angola have agreed to sign a declaration that will see ordinary passport holders no longer needing visas to travel between the two countries, government news agency BuaNews reported on Tuesday. It said that the declaration of intent would be signed on Wednesday.
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/ 20 November 2007
London’s metropolitan police have been forced to spend £15 000 creating ”ethnically diverse” mascots after complaints about a model deemed too white and too male, reports said on Tuesday. Critics said the original mascot risked leaving Asian and women officers ”isolated”.
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/ 20 November 2007
The filming of <i>Hansie</i> — based on the life of the late South African cricket captain Hansie Cronje — has been completed, its producer said on Tuesday. "The movie is looking beautiful and we are very happy with the quality of the scenes we have shot," producer Frans Cronje, the brother of the cricketer, said in a statement.