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/ 19 October 2007
Britain’s Northern Rock on Friday announced the resignation of chairperson Matt Ridley following a turbulent period at the crisis-hit bank. He will be succeeded by Bryan Sanderson, a former chairperson at British-based emerging markets bank Standard Chartered and healthcare firm Bupa, the company said in a statement.
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/ 12 October 2007
Britain’s Virgin Group, controlled by entrepreneur Richard Branson, is in talks to take over troubled bank Northern Rock, a person familiar with the matter said on Friday. The group could lead a consortium including Middle East and United States investors that would inject cash in exchange for a controlling stake.
International elder statesmen, including two Nobel Peace Prize winners, said on Thursday that Darfur was rife with violence and deeply divided after returning from the Sudanese region. They warned rape was widespread and being ignored by the Sudanese authorities and also urged Khartoum to hand over war-crimes suspects for trial at the International Criminal Court.
A group of elder statesmen, including former US president Jimmy Carter and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Desmond Tutu, urged all sides in Darfur’s bloodshed to reach a peace deal as they began a tour on Tuesday of the war-torn region. The visit comes days after rebels overran an African Union peacekeeping base in northern Darfur.
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/ 30 September 2007
Ten African Union (AU) soldiers were killed and 50 were missing after armed men launched an assault on an AU base in Darfur, the worst attack on AU troops since they deployed in Sudan’s violent west in 2004. The AU called it a ”deliberate and sustained” assault by about 30 vehicles, which overran and looted the peacekeepers’ camp on Saturday night.
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/ 17 September 2007
A council of peacemaking world leaders and Nobel laureates launched by former South African president Nelson Mandela is taking up Darfur as its first mission, with a trip to Sudan planned later this month, the organisation said on Monday. Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who chairs the group known as The Elders, will lead a delegation.
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/ 17 September 2007
Richard Branson on Monday sold his Virgin Megastores record shops in Britain and Ireland, shedding the brand which launched his Virgin empire. The British tycoon said high-street music retailing was facing a stiff challenge from supermarket and online sales.
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/ 13 September 2007
Web search leader Google will sponsor a -million competition for an unmanned lunar landing, following up on the -million Ansari X Prize that spurred a private sector race to space. The Google Lunar X Prize is open to private industry and non-government entities worldwide, organisers said on Thursday.
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/ 9 September 2007
Hope was fading that the missing multi-millionaire adventurer Steve Fossett would be found alive following his disappearance on Monday while flying a small plane over the vast Nevada desert, as it was revealed on Saturday that he had taken only one canteen of water with him.
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/ 7 September 2007
Air crews planned to search a vast area of the Nevada and California desert for a fifth day on Friday in the hope of spotting missing United States adventurer Steve Fossett. Two aircraft equipped with infrared technology flew throughout Thursday night looking for the 63-year-old millionaire and aviation record-setter.
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/ 6 September 2007
Rescue planes and a helicopter were launched over Nevada’s rugged terrain at dawn on Wednesday as the search for the millionaire adventurer Steve Fossett entered its third day. Fossett took off from a Nevada ranch owned by the Hilton family at 9am on Monday.
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/ 5 September 2007
Samoa has palm-fringed beaches, lagoons filled with wildly coloured fish and jungle-covered hills, but is only slowly coming out of the shade of better known South Pacific tourist destinations. The number of visitors travelling to the Polynesian nation of 180 000 for holidays jumped 23,6% last year to nearly 41 000.
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/ 5 September 2007
Steve Fossett, the adventurer who cheated death several times during his perambulations around the globe by air and sea, was missing on Tuesday night after taking off from a ranch in Nevada for a short flight in a single-engine plane. Rescue teams were scouring the rugged terrain of western Nevada on Tuesday for a plane wreck or any other trace of Fossett.