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/ 7 December 2005
Former All Blacks coach John Mitchell said on Wednesday he was not in the running to replace sacked Wallaby chief Eddie Jones, preferring to focus on building Perth’s new Super 14 team, the Western Force. Mitchell’s manager, John Fordham, said the New Zealander informed Australian Rugby Union selectors that he was not interested in the Wallabies coaching position.
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/ 7 December 2005
South Korean regulators ruled on Wednesday that United States software giant Microsoft abused its market dominance and violated fair trade rules, fining the firm 33-billion won (-million). Microsoft, which denies any wrongdoing, was also ordered to remove parts of bundled software from its Windows operating system.
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/ 7 December 2005
The government’s black economic empowerment policies were not responsible for the enrichment of a few individuals in the private sector, President Thabo Mbeki said on Tuesday night. ”All the big names that you know, who are cited [as] the big black economic empowerment actors, none of them have got to that position as a result of government intervention,” he said.
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/ 7 December 2005
Divers have been recruited to search the flooded shafts of a northern Chinese coal mine for 42 missing miners, the government said on Wednesday. Rescuers have been working for days to locate the workers, who were trapped in an underground flood last Friday at the privately owned Sigou Coal Mine.
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/ 7 December 2005
Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki appeared set on Wednesday to name a new government to replace the Cabinet he fired en masse last month after the embarrassing rejection of a new Constitution he backed. The expected announcement is hoped to bring an end to a two-week crisis of authority in the East African nation.
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/ 7 December 2005
South Africa crashed to an innings defeat in their opening tour match against Western Australia on Wednesday after losing eight wickets for 139 runs on the third and final day. The tourists had been forced to follow-on after making just 179 in their first innings in reply to Western Australia’s 391 for 8 declared.
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/ 7 December 2005
Fugitive al-Qaeda number two Ayman al-Zawahiri claimed in a new videotape aired on Wednesday that the network’s leader Osama bin Laden was still alive and leading ”jihad” against the West. The turbaned Islamist also called on al-Qaeda fighters to attack oil installations in Muslim countries, according to al-Jazeera television which broadcast the video.
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/ 7 December 2005
South Africa’s hopes of salvaging their opening tour match in Australia were all but extinguished by lunch on Wednesday as they slumped to 120 for five in their second innings against Western Australia. Forced to follow on after making a paltry first innings of 179 in reply to Western Australia’s 391 for 8, South Africa were still 92 runs adrift of the Western Australian total.
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/ 7 December 2005
The number of Hollywood films showing on-screen smoking is back up to the levels of the 1950s, with nearly 80% of films rated for young audiences including scenes in which characters light up. Why nearly half of all teenage smokers in the United States try cigarettes can be linked to on-screen smoking, leading researchers to call for an adult rating for all films that depict tobacco use.
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/ 7 December 2005
India’s Health Minister, Ambumani Ramadoss, has described his own country’s main Aids body as “visionless”.