A senior British officer accused Pakistan of allowing the Taliban to use its territory as a ”headquarters” for attacks on Western troops in Afghanistan as insurgents struck on multiple fronts on Thursday. In one of the worst 24-hour periods since they were ousted from power in 2001, the Taliban launched two suicide bombs, and numerous firefights.

Emily, Emma and Madison had better watch out: there’s a new kid on the block. United States social security data for 2005 shows that the girl’s name growing fastest in popularity is not a traditional name but a newfangled tongue-twister. Nevaeh is now the 70th most popular girl’s name in the US, sandwiched between Evelyn and Madeline.

Britain and the United States were on Thursday night facing almost total isolation in Iraq after Italy’s new Prime Minister, Romano Prodi, made it clear that he intended to pull out the third-biggest contingent in the military coalition at the earliest possible opportunity.

The FBI dug up farmland outside Detroit on Thursday in a search for the remains of the legendary trade union boss Jimmy Hoffa, who disappeared more than 30 years ago. Hoffa, the all-powerful leader of the Teamsters truck drivers’ union, went missing on the afternoon of July 30 1975.

There was something odd about the way the police were moving: eight or 10 of them edging backward up the dingy canyon of Plein Street as if in retreat from the mass of striking security guards. They were carrying shotguns, and the bright discs of rubber bullets showed in their bandoliers, but they looked frightened, they looked like they were being herded.

‘I fear we will live to regret the 2007 conference," a senior African National Congress figure told the <i>Mail & Guardian</i> recently. He was referring to the fevered atmosphere of power-lust, greed, fear, revenge and conspiracy gripping the party as a consequence of the battle between Jacob Zuma’s supporters and detractors.