United States President George Bush rebuffed an appeal from the Palestinian leader, Mahmoud Abbas, on Thursday for a swift revival of peace negotiations and the rapid creation of a Palestinian state after Israel pulls out of the Gaza Strip. The Palestinian president told a joint press conference with Bush: ”It is time for the Palestinian-Israeli conflict to end.
HSBC staff in Britain were to strike in their thousands on Friday in a dispute over pay and the biggest walk-out against a leading bank here for more than eight years, union officials said. The global banking giant, which saw 2004 pre-tax profits soar 37% to ,61-billion, said it expected most of its 1 500 branches to remain open.
As a superstar Tom Cruise vaunts his romance with actress Katie Holmes, but Americans are extremely sceptical about whether the feted relationship is true love or an extravagant publicity stunt. An unscientific poll by People magazine indicated that 63% of readers believe the romance is a publicity stunt, while only 37% believe the pair are genuinely in love.
T-shirt maker Laugh It Off has won its fight against South African Breweries (SAB) over its right to mock the Carling Black Label brand. Justice Dikgang Moseneke, handing down a unanimous judgement in the Constitutional Court on Friday, found that SAB had not proved that Laugh It Off had infringed on the brewery’s trademark with the message on its shirts.
Well-heeled consultants and companies in the West are the real beneficiaries of the global aid system, according to a report out on Friday. The report found that 61% of aid flows were ”phantom” rather than ”real” — rising to almost 90% in the case of France and the United States.
The whole point of a little black dress is supposed to be that you can wear it to any occasion and fit in. So, after a protracted wardrobe crisis, I have chosen, for a midweek footballers’ wives’ night out, a simple, beaded, knee-length black crêpe cocktail dress. My plan is that I will blend into the crowd, all the better to observe.
An African agenda for the July meeting of the Group of Eight (G8) industrialised nations is to be canvassed when President Thabo Mbeki meets United States President George Bush in Washington next week. Bush extended an invitation to Mbeki a few weeks ago for talks at the White House, partly to discuss the upcoming summit at Gleneagles in Scotland.
Gordon Strachan will manage Celtic next season in place of Martin O’Neill.
O’Neill is leaving to be with his wife Geraldine, who has cancer, and Celtic have reached a deal for Strachan to succeed him. The former Scotland international is returning to management 15 months after he quit Southampton to take a break.
Once the trophy had been hidden away, Arsenal’s euphoria subsided. ”We were second in the league and didn’t win the Champions League, so to win the FA Cup makes it an okay season, but not more than that,” said Freddie Ljungberg. Thoughts were already drifting to the future and the improvement needed.
Edgars Consolidated Stores, one of South Africa’s largest retailers, says it has no response to Thursday’s call by the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) for investors to disinvest from Edcon shares. "We can’t comment on what drives fund managers’ investment decisions," said Edcon’s executive manager for investor relations Tessa Christelis on Friday.