Seven insurers have agreed to pay an additional -billion to developers of the World Trade Centre, resolving all outstanding claims from the September 11 2001 attacks and speeding redevelopment of the site, New York State officials announced on Wednesday.
A rare spate of protests in Burma means the junta is very unlikely to release democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi when her latest year of house arrest expires this weekend, former political prisoners say. The last time Suu Kyi was released from house arrest, in 2002, she drew huge crowds on a tour of the country.
The world’s largest charity hospital ship docked in Liberia on Wednesday to begin a mission to bring free healthcare to Africa. The 80-bed Africa Mercy, a former Danish rail ferry converted into a hospital ship, will spend several months treating patients in Monrovia port before moving on to Sierra Leone.
Mdantsane fighter Ali Funeka was finally stripped of his title by Boxing South Africa (BSA) on Wednesday for refusing to defend it against top contender Godfrey Nzimande. BSA said Funeka was relieved of the title due to his failure to respond to numerous letters ordering him to honour the defence of his title.
A naked American tourist raised eyebrows when he went for a walk through a German city and told police he thought this was acceptable behavior in Germany. ”We have been having unusually hot weather here lately but, all the same, we can’t have this,” said a spokesperson for police.
The developing world must press for a strong treaty to limit the trade in conventional arms, which is ”dangerously out of control”, Nobel Laureate Desmond Tutu said on Thursday. A total of 153 countries at the United Nations voted last year to start work on the treaty, recognising the need to control the sale of arms.
Insurer Old Mutual posted a 5% rise in first-quarter operating profit, at the higher end of expectations, but said it still expected exchange rates and infrastructure costs to hold back growth this year. South Africa’s largest insurer said on Thursday operating profit on an IFRS basis was £398-million.
South Africa supports Vietnam’s bid to be a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council in 2008/09, President Thabo Mbeki said on a visit to Hanoi on Thursday. Mbeki and Vietnam President Nguyen Minh Triet agreed to broaden friendly relations, which stretch back to the 1970s when Mbeki’s then-exiled African National Congress was fighting apartheid and the communists unified Vietnam.
California denied parole on Wednesday to Charles Manson, one of America’s most notorious mass murderers, in his 11th bid for release. California’s Board of Parole Hearings said that Manson (72) ”continues to pose an unreasonable danger to others and may still bring harm to anyone he would come in contact with”.
South Africa’s central bank was closely watching whether another round of oil and food price increases widens inflation, and it would take action if this occured, Governor Tito Mboweni said on Wednesday. ”If we see second-round effects coming through it is prudent for the central bank to tighten monetary policy,” Mboweni said in a speech in Cape Town.