Paul Bremer, former American proconsul in Iraq, recently recalled his first impressions of the country he came to govern in May last year. ”As I drove from the airport, Baghdad was on fire,” he said. ”There was no traffic, and not one policeman on duty in the country.” Now, after transferring power to an Iraqi government on Wednesday, he leaves a city again in flames.
Former Enron CEO Kenneth Lay has spoken out for the first time since the company’s collapse and placed the blame for the firm’s failure squarely on the shoulders of finance chief Andrew Fastow. In a lengthy interview with the New York Times, Lay protested his innocence and spoke of his vilification in the media and the dramatic slump in his personal finances.
Unites States Secretary of State Colin Powell said on Wednesday that the militias which have terrorised western Sudan ”must be broken”, and described conditions in the region as a ”humanitarian catastrophe”. After visiting a refugee camp in northern Darfur, he said that controlling the Janjaweed militias was the only way to restore peace.
The mood among expatriates in Riyadh remains sombre. It is only a fortnight since the beheading of the American engineer Paul Johnson, and there is genuine fear of being shot at or kidnapped. The atmosphere is comparatively relaxed in Jeddah, on the Red Sea, where the government established its summer base two weeks ago for its four-month annual escape from the heat of the capital.
Luis Figo bounced back from a poor performance in the quarterfinal to
lead his team to Sunday’s Euro 2004 final. But, if there is a flaw in this Portugal team, and there is more than one, it is that they still do not possess a striker who scores freely.
Did I read the other day that Spitting Image is coming back? Not a moment too soon, in my view. And not just for the fun to be had with the current nightmarish bunch of politicians. No, the greatest gift to the puppeteer satirists is the court of the Emperor Roman, which is currently on a kind of working holiday in Portugal.
With second sight having failed most pundits we have been left with a Euro 2004 tournament of second thoughts. The composition of the semifinals was unexpected and the names of the key figures come as almost as great a surprise. For example, no one had imagined Helder Postiga slaying England.
The Spar South African women’s hockey team came back from losing 3-2 to Spain on Wednesday to beat Spain 2-1 in Barcelona on Friday. South Africa led 2-0 at the break. The goals were scored by Johke Koornhof and Pietie Coetzee. Coach Ros Howell said she was very pleased with the result of Friday’s match.
A British couple has been reported missing in the Transkei region of the Eastern Cape and relatives fear they may have been hijacked, radio station Algoa FM News reported on Friday. Matthew James Henderson (34) and his wife, Daphne (30), were last heard of on Saturday.
Serena Williams rallied from a set and 3-1 down — winning three key points with a cracked racket — to defeat Amelie Mauresmo and advance to the Wimbledon final for the third straight year. Williams will face 17-year-old Maria Sharapova in Saturday’s final.