Developing countries will enjoy their best year of economic growth in 2004, producing a ”spectacular” drop in poverty around the world, the World Bank said on Tuesday. Releasing its annual report on global economic prospects, the World Bank said developing countries will register growth of 6,1% this year and just above 5% in 2005 and 2006.

When Schabir Shaik heard that his accountant was leaving Nkobi Holdings he stopped her final salary, the Durban High Court heard on Wednesday. Former Nkobi accountant Ceila Bester, who is being cross-examined in the fraud and corruption trial against Shaik, told the court she had resigned because she was unhappy with the way in which Nkobi did its books, and in particular the write-off
of various accounts.

The family of Margaret Hassan on Tuesday night accepted that the aid worker taken hostage by Iraqi insurgents a month ago had probably been murdered, after analysis of a video which showed a masked gunman shooting a blindfolded woman in the head.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/pd.asp?cg=BreakingNews-InternationalNews&ao=125665">’We believe she has been murdered'</a>
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/pd.asp?cg=BreakingNews-InternationalNews&ao=125660">US, Iraqi troops target Mosul</a>

South Africa’s educational system has to deal with the legacy of apartheid. Many poorer, mainly black, households do not have access to schools with functioning maths and science departments. Centre for Development and Enterprise research shows that almost one-fifth of secondary schools do not offer senior certificate maths and science at all, while a third of the schools that do achieve pass rates between nought and 19%.