France’s new Prime Minister, Dominique de Villepin, refused on Wednesday to push the country down the road towards free-market reform, saying ”Gallic genius” would help put back on its feet a ”suffering, impatient and angry” nation that has failed to adapt fully to a changing world.
A wealthy American banker was drugged with a spiked strawberry milkshake and then bludgeoned to death by his wife, a court in Hong Kong heard on Wednesday, at the start of one of the most talked-about murder cases in the territory’s recent history.
Behind the barbed wire, the floodlights and the high redbrick walls of the county penitentiary in The Hague Tim MacFadden has never been so busy. The Irish military officer came here eight years ago to take charge of a challenging experiment in international justice — running the remand unit for the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal.
Documents released by a United States watchdog group, the Government Accountability Project, show that as chief of staff for the White House council on environmental quality, Philip Cooney, watered down government scientific papers on climate change and played up uncertainties in the scientific literature.
On a sultry summer’s night, men crowd into a tent on the edge of Lahore’s red light district. They silently eyeball the slinking female figure on stage before them. She flirts, pouts and bats an eyelid, rolling her hips and running a suggestive finger across the lips.
The JSE Securities Exchange (JSE) remained firm at midday on Thursday as the weak rand boosted resources and mining stocks. Traders said the market was waiting for the announcement on interest rates following the conclusion of the Reserve Bank monetary policy committee’s two-day meeting.
Argentina qualified for their ninth successive World Cup with a sweet 3-1 defeat of arch-rival Brazil on Wednesday. The Argentines joined Iran, Japan, Saudi Arabia and South Korea as the first nations to qualify for next year’s finals, along with host Germany, an automatic qualifier in the 32-nation field.
Chelsea, Arsenal and Manchester United are on the prowl for summer signings to help tip the balance in what could be the closest Premiership race for years. Arsenal are in negotiations with Stuttgart about Belarus winger Alexander Hleb as manager Arsene Wenger tries to strengthen the right side of his midfield.
Apple co-founder Steve Jobs dropped a bombshell in his keynote speech opening this week’s Worldwide Developer Conference in San Francisco. ”Yes, it’s true,” said Jobs, confirming the rumours. ”We are transitioning from PowerPC to Intel processors.”
A Kenyan judge on Thursday dismissed murder charges against four Kenyan men accused in the 2002 al-Qaeda linked bombing of an Israeli-owned hotel near the southern city of Mombasa and ordered them released for lack of evidence. ”The accused ought not to have been charged with murder,” he said.