A senior United States diplomat arrived in Chad’s capital on Monday to meet with officials about a dispute between the government and the World Bank over how the country uses oil royalties — a dispute that has the government threatening to shut off oil supplies by the week’s end.
Sanlam, South Africa’s second-largest life insurer, has confirmed it is examining a possible acquisition of the United Kingdom life insurance business of General Electric (GE) as one of several opportunities for enhancing its capital efficiency. In a statement on Monday, Sanlam said, however, that its evaluation of the GE business was at an "embryonic stage".
United Kingdom’s public finances chalked up the worst deficit in 12 years during the 2005/2006 fiscal year, official data showed on Monday, dealing a blow to Finance Minister Gordon Brown’s forecasts. Economists said that the worsening state of the public purse pointed towards likely tax hikes or public-spending cuts in the near future.
The South Africa government has condemned an attack on Cape Town mayor Helen Zille during the disruption of a meeting over the weekend. ”Government condemns this kind of behaviour without qualification. Our Constitution guarantees free political activity for all parties and individuals,” government spokesperson Joel Netshitenzhe said on Monday.
The crackdown on leaks at the Central Intelligence Agency that led to the dismissal of a veteran employee last week included an unusual lie detector test for CIA Inspector General John Helgerson, The New York Times reported on Monday.
South African Airways will introduce a daily service on its route between Johannesburg and Washington-Dulles International airport. As a result, it will discontinue its daily service to Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International airport. The airline’s route between Johannesburg and Washington was launched at the end of June 2005 with four flights a week, including an operational fuel stop in Accra, Ghana.
Iraq’s political leaders on Sunday threw their weight behind the choice of Jawad al-Maliki as the prime minister-designate, and prepared to unveil a 33-point plan to renew Iraq and remove the need for foreign troops. As Maliki opened discussions on forming a new Cabinet, Jalal Talabani, the President, said the straight-talking Shia politician was the ”right man” to head a government of national unity.
A former leading CIA official said on Sunday that the White House deliberately ignored intelligence that showed that there were no weapons of mass destruction in the run-up to the war in Iraq. Tyler Drumheller, who was once the highest-ranking CIA officer in Europe, told CBS’s 60 Minutes programme that the White House shifted its focus to regime change in the months before the invasion.
A thousand people fled on Monday and at least another 9 000 were on stand-by for evacuation in Romania after the swollen River Danube burst its banks. As well as the worst-hit country, Romania, flood waters have waterlogged homes, farmland and transport links in Hungary, Serbia and Bulgaria.
Home to hundreds of aircraft under Saddam Hussein’s ousted regime, the dusty al-Muthana air base outside the Iraqi capital today hosts just three lonely cargo planes. After obliterating Saddam’s formidable air force in the 1991 Gulf war and the invasion of 2003, United States forces say they are now putting the pieces back together in the hope that Iraqis will eventually take over for the coalition.