Jurors deliberated for a second day on Thursday in the fraud trial of former Enron chief executives Jeffrey Skilling and Kenneth Lay, who led the energy giant before its spectacular meltdown in 2001. After more than three months of testimony from 55 witnesses, the government concluded its closing argument on Wednesday.
In another twist in the Pretoria High Court drama of seven alleged Pakistani illegal immigrants, Judge Dion Basson recused himself on Thursday from presiding in the case. The men were arrested outside the court after attending another court case about Khalid Mahmood Rashid, who disappeared last year when he was deported to Pakistan.
Sanath Jayasuriya has seen his chances of a Test recall dented after he was omitted from Sri Lanka’s four-day game against English county Sussex starting on Thursday. The 36-year-old former Sri Lanka captain has made himself available for selection just six weeks after he announced he was quitting Test cricket.
Zimbabwe’s Econet Wireless has acquired a 65% stake in ST Cellular of Burundi, one of four licensed operators in the Central African country. ”The investment in Burundi is part of our expansion strategy to invest and grow in targeted emerging markets in Africa and beyond,” said Zachary Wazara, Econet’s executive director.
The African National Congress is encouraged by prospects for a peaceful and lasting resolution to violence in the Basque region of Spain, it said on Thursday. This was after a meeting between the Basque political party Batasuna and the ANC in Johannesburg on Wednesday.
Universal Pictures has become the subject of the first racial discrimination case to be brought against a major Hollywood studio by the United States government — a case that prosecutors hope will reveal the injustices in an industry they say is rife with racism and fear.
More animals were killed by poachers in the Kruger National Park (KNP) last year than the year before, but the park says the numbers have ”decreased significantly” in recent months. ”Up to 20 white rhino were poached last year; the figure is now back down to seven or eight,” KNP media officer Raymond Travers said.
China on Thursday denied as ”groundless” allegations that it was trying to steal military and scientific intelligence from the United States. ”The so-called accusation that China is stealing US military and scientific intelligence is groundless,” foreign ministry spokesperson Liu Jianchao said.
Japanese police said on Tuesday they found the bodies of 100 cats, some badly decomposed, in the apartment of a woman who found it hard to part with her pets even after they died. The woman, who had adopted sick and stray cats for years, kept the bodies in containers.
Whoever George Green is, he now has a good excuse for standing up Gwen at Monty’s — 56 years ago. That’s how long it took her handwritten letter to George to reach Trinity College in Cambridge, eastern England, where it arrived the other day, postmarked in London on March 3 1950.