Senior figures across the Labour party are intensifying pressure on Tony Blair to publicly detach himself from the Bush administration, calling on him to spell out an independent British position on the Middle East, peacekeeping in Iraq and the United States presidential election.
The parents of Nick Berg, the freelance contractor brutally murdered on video, on Thursday stepped up their campaign to expose the Pentagon’s role in their son’s final days, releasing an e-mail from a United States official saying he was being detained by US troops.
They called it ”bitch in a box”. On a baking hot day last August, a black Mercedes sedan pulled up at the United States army base in Ramadi and two US interrogators dragged an Iraqi man out of the boot. He was gasping for air. ”They kind of had to prop him up to carry him in. He looked like he had been there for a while,” said a US soldier who witnessed the Iraqi’s arrival.
‘US held man who was beheaded’
Greenpeace will appear in court in Miami on Monday in what is believed to be the first criminal prosecution in the United States of a campaign group for the activities of its members. The case has been attacked by the former vice-president Al Gore and many civil rights groups, who claim it is being used by the attorney general, John Ashcroft, to stifle dissent.
African National Congress MP Vincent Smith’s coronation as leader of Parliament’s public accounts committee, Scopa, brings to a sad end one the most inglorious chapters in South Africa’s new democracy. Smith has been rewarded for shielding the executive during Parliament’s ill-starred efforts to hold it to account over the multibillion-rand arms deal.
United States President George W Bush promised $15-billion for the fight against HIV/Aids in developing countries over five years. But former Eli Lilly CEO Randall Tobias, who runs the president’s Aids emergency plan, said the money would be spent only on high-quality patented drugs from the giant pharmaceutical companies.
A media conspiracy unfolded this week. The facts — which we know to be true because they were printed in newspapers — include that
South African men are the laziest in the world, outslothing Muscovite pimps and Zimbabwean election monitors, and that Danny Jordaan is "the hardest-working man in South African football".
For those who live in monasteries, some football news. Arsenal are one match away from an historic unbeaten season atop the Premiership. Leicester will become their 38th unsuccessful opponents on Saturday. Put your brightest red shirt on it. According to the pundits it’s all down to that nice chap Thierry Henry.
On Saturday night in Las Vegas, one of the last great fighters will step into the ring again. Alongside a fake tropical oasis and a surreal 15-acre indoor beach at the Mandalay Bay hotel and casino, it will feel as if Roy Jones Jnr is also hustling boxing a little closer towards its chaotic endgame.
It was Paul Simon who advised Mrs Robinson, ”Anyway you look at this you lose” – and that is certainly the case for the Stormers. Just look how it stacks up. They’re playing the Crusaders in Christchurch, the single most successful side in the history of the competition, who have been to the final five times in eight seasons.