"I won't let those b******s drive me out." US secretary of state Colin Powell, responding to his detractors in the Pentagon.
MANHATTAN, US
The Last Warrior
President George Bush has decided to wage yet another war—against corporate corruption in the US. Loath to target business honchos on whose support he entered the White House, Bush is now compelled to act because financial scams have shaken investors’ confidence. In Manhattan last week, Bush told CEOs: "There’s no capitalism without conscience." And to capitalists without conscience, Bush threatened with a slew of measures: a 10-year imprisonment for corporate fraud, strengthening laws that criminalise document shredding, proscribing those with personal financial interests in a company from its board of directors, a ban on companies extending loans to CEOs, and a new division in the Justice Department to probe corporate fraud. But most CEOs thought the need was to affect systemic changes. No wonder they were parsimonious with their applause.
DURBAN, SOUTH AFRICA
Ratifying Unity
The Organisation of African Unity (OAU), established in 1963, became the African Union (AU) on Tuesday in Durban. In March last year, at the Extraordinary OAU Summit in Sirte, Libya, African heads of state announced the decision to establish the AU. On April 26, 2001, Nigeria became the 36th member state to deposit its instrument of ratification, reaching the two-thirds requirement before the Constitutive Act was to come into force on May 26, 2001. At the Lusaka Summit on July 9, 2001, the OAU secretary-general said the Constitutive Act had been ratified by 51 countries. The Act replaces the Charter of the OAU, with a provision for a transitional period that lapsed on July 10, 2002. It enabled the OAU to undertake the necessary measures regarding the devolution of its assets and liabilities to the Union, which has inherited an estimated $42 million debt. Unity was one of the many things that eluded the OAU. Hopefully, the AU would deliver that.
LONDON, UK
Family Affairs
When a white woman with a white husband gave birth to black twins last week, after visits to a fertility clinic, the shock waves spread far and wide. While doctors are trying to figure out the mistake, lawyers are arguing about who the real parents are: the woman who gave birth, or the genetic parents. The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act, 1990, says it’s the former. But the law doesn’t take into account the mistake the National Health Service has now made. What if the woman who carried the children now does not want them? Or that she does, and also the genetic black parents, whose sperm or eggs were used?
