The military tribunals of suspected terrorists held at Guantánamo Bay were a ”tremendous failure”, a United States military lawyer told Congress on Wednesday. Navy Lieutenant Commander Charles Swift was testifying before the first full Senate hearing on the Bush administration’s treatment of detainees since the ”war on terror” began.
Six masked men who took 70 students and three teachers hostage at an international school in northwestern Cambodia on Thursday have released some of their captives, a government spokesperson and police said. The men have also demanded a 12-seat van from authorities.
The United States has imposed sanctions on Israel after a dispute over Israel’s sale of drones — unmanned aerial vehicles — to China, according to news reports. The US has suspended cooperation on several development projects and frozen delivery of night-vision equipment.
Pope Benedict XVI will issue a condensed version of the Roman Catholic Church’s 865-page catechism, or book of official teaching, on June 28, the Vatican said on Wednesday. The late Pope John Paul II asked the present pontiff, then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, in 2003 to prepare a compact edition of the catechism.
Two-thirds of judges and magistrates must ultimately be black in order to reflect the country’s racial demographics, new justice department director-general Menzi Simelani said on Wednesday. Referring to a lack of female and black judges, he said: ”There is a clear misrepresentation”.
Pre-orders for JK Rowling’s latest Harry Potter novel have exceeded half a million one month before the release of the sixth volume. A total of 568 000 copies of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince have been ordered online and at American syndicated store sites, such as Borders.com, said online retailer Amazon.com.
Bafana Bafana coach Stuart Baxter believes ”nerves of steel” could be the deciding factor in the crucial World Cup qualifying game against Ghana on Saturday — and South Africa should be at a distinct advantage in this respect. ”It’s invariably easier rising to the occasion and playing with spirit and aggression in home games,” said Baxter.
The firing of Deputy President Jacob Zuma was only a bid to divert attention from the government’s multi-billion rand arms deal, activist Terry Crawford-Browne charged on Wednesday. Browne said that instead of acknowledging that the state succumbed to European pressures to buy armaments, President Thabo Mbeki was making Zuma a ”sacrificial lamb”.
Social Development Minister Zola Skweyiya will hold urgent talks with the chief executives of the big South African banks in a bid to end fraud in the distribution of social grants, his office said on Wednesday. In the past, Skweyiya had said government lost no less than R1,5-billion per annum due to fraud and corruption in social grants.
Zimbabwe’s HIV/Aids prevalence rate has declined from 24,6% two years ago to 21,3%, due to greater Aids awareness and changed sexual behaviour, according to a new study quoted in the state-run daily, The Herald. Zimbabwe is one of the countries hardest hit with at least 3 000 people dying weekly from Aids-related illness.