All Blacks captain Reuben Thorne said his team is cranking up their training in order to hit the ground running at next months rugby World Cup. The New Zealanders have held a series of training camps around the country during the past fortnight and have been overwhelmed by the support of the public, Thorne said.

If you’re a fan of history, I’m sure you’re also familiar with the great William J Le Petomane who farted professionally (and in tune) for very happy audiences at the Moulin Rouge. You can even download a clip or two of a wind instrument of the sort that the ANC should be using for their Moral Regeneration choir fetish idiocy.

An investigation by The Observer can reveal that White House officials are attempting to downplay findings of scientists on global warming. The revelations will anger environment campaigners who claim that efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions are being sabotaged because of President Bush’s links to the oil industry.

Reform of the UN security council is the Rubik’s cube of international diplomacy, yet secretary-general Kofi Annan wants the world body to have another crack at this puzzle. In a report earlier this month, Annan indicated that the time may have come for a radical restructuring of the UN after its crisis of legitimacy over the Iraq war.

The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund had better watch their backs. The UN’s Security Council will find its anomalous powers ever harder to sustain. Poor nations, if they stick together, can begin to exercise a collective threat to the rich. For this they need leverage and, in the form of their debts, they possess it.