Four big terrorist attacks by locally recruited militants in three years — the 2002 Bali nightclub bombing, the 2003 bomb at the Jakarta Marriott hotel, last year’s bomb at the Australian embassy in Jakarta and last Saturday’s second Bali bombing — suggest not only incompetent security forces but something profoundly wrong with society.
While the ruling African National Congress has tried to take the vicious political battles in its midst behind closed doors, two key events this week reveal the storm beneath the calm. From the funeral of Brett Kebble in Cape Town to the first sitting of the Khampepe commission in Pretoria, the divisions and fissures in the ruling ranks were evident.
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British Prime Minister Tony Blair on Thursday said new explosive devices used against British troops in Iraq were suspected to have come from ”Iranian elements”. Blair warned Tehran the United Kingdom would ”not be intimidated” into giving up its demand that Iran should abandon its nuclear programme.
A black T-shirt helped identify William Nkuna as the man withdrawing money from missing constable Frances Rasuge’s account days after she disappeared, the Mmabatho Circuit Court heard on Thursday. The man captured on bank surveillance cameras withdrawing money from Rasuge’s account was Nkuna, investigating officer Captain Tsietsi Mmano said at Nkuna’s trial for her murder.
A dogged French Socialist MP on Wednesday revealed that Jacques Chirac, already the most expensive president the French have had, was costing the taxpayer more than three times the official figure. For 2003, the last year for which full figures are available, Parliament voted the Elysée an annual budget of â,¬30,5m.
The Balkans are home to Europe’s most inveterate smokers, where 30 to 40% of all adults are gripped by the habit — a major cause of premature death. ”People in that part of Europe smoke the most compared to the continent as a whole,” World Health Organisation director for Europe, Marc Danzon, said on the sidelines of a regional conference on smoking prevention.
Australia’s pace spearhead Glenn McGrath will be rested for Friday’s Super Series limited-overs international, giving the World XI additional hope of levelling the three-match contest. McGrath complained of tightness in the legs after his seven-over opening spell on Wednesday returned 2-13 and had the World XI reeling at 50-3 chasing 256 to win.
A Federal Express cargo plane crashed in downtown Winnipeg on Thursday, killing the female pilot and narrowly missing nearby cars and buildings, police told Agence France Presse. The Cessna 208 was en route from Winnipeg in central Canada to Thunder Bay in neighbouring Ontario province when it went down at about 5.45am (10.45am GMT) in the trendy Osborne Village neighborhood of the city.