The chief executive who vowed to repair the tarnished reputation of Boeing on Monday fell victim to his own scandal when he was fired for conducting an affair with one of the company’s female executives. Harry Stonecipher was hired to help steady the defence and aeroplane company after it was sent reeling by revelations of misconduct in securing Pentagon contracts.
”Sharon, Lily is waiting for you.” The message being spray-painted around Israel contains menace: Lily, Ariel Sharon’s wife, died of lung cancer in 2000; now hardline Jewish opponents of the prime minister are willing him to join her. The alternative version of the graffito — ”Sharon, Rabin is waiting for you” — is a more direct threat.
European hopes that the Bush administration would bring a more multilateral approach to its foreign policy were dealt a blow on Monday with the nomination of an outspoken hawk as the United States’ ambassador to the United Nations. John Bolton, the nominee and a former undersecretary of state for arms control, has built a reputation for public disdain for international treaties.
Three works by the Norwegian artist Edvard Munch, stolen from a hotel in southern Norway, were recovered on Monday less than 24 hours after they were taken. Two were lithographs (one of the Swedish playwright August Strindberg, the other of Munch himself), and the third a watercolour of a woman in a blue dress, estimated together to be worth hundreds of thousands of pounds.
Police in a sprawling working-class suburb on the edge of the Mexican capital are to fight crime with a new weapon: books. The left-wing mayor of Nezahualcoyotl, Luis Sanchez, has ordered all 1 100 members of the municipal police to read at least one book a month or forfeit their chance of promotion.
The British government is to back punitive measures against the Sudanese government after losing patience over the worsening humanitarian crisis in Darfur. Until now the British Foreign Office has argued that persuasion was more productive than sanctions and other measures.
A six-year-old boy was suspended from a Christian school near Chicago last week after his mother refused to hit him for misbehaving. In recent months Chandler Fallaw had returned home from Shaumburg Christian school with disciplinary notes for showing off, offering his teacher chewing gum, not finishing his work and bringing toys into class.
Police have identified suspects who may be responsible for the murder of Zulu prince and African National Congress branch chairperson Thulani Zulu. ”There are definite suspects who have been positively identified,” KwaZulu-Natal transport MEC Bheki Cele said on Monday. Zulu was killed in a drive-by shooting last Wednesday.
After 24 years at the frontlines of journalism in the United States, CBS News anchor Dan Rather will deliver the evening news for the last time on Wednesday, six months after apologising for an error-riddled report critical of US President George Bush’s military service. His five-decade career will effectively end under the cloud of the September report.
Minister of Defence Mosiuoa Lekota and his counterparts from the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region had an unscheduled meeting in Cape Town on Tuesday to discuss growing tensions in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). ”It is a short agenda with momentous consequences,” Lekota said.