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Jacob Zuma will stand trial
The man set to be South Africa's next President has been charged with corruption and will stand trial next year.
Jacob Zuma was elected leader of the ruling African National Congress (ANC) earlier this month.

However, he will face charges in a high court on August 14, 2008, his defence lawyer, Michael Hulley, said.

Prosecutors have been investigating allegations that the Zulu politician took bribes in connection with an arms deal.
His prosecution could split the ANC and derail his hopes of succeeding President Thabo Mbeki, who must step down in 2009.

He beat Mr Mbeki to the party leadership thanks in part to the current President's increasing unpopularity.

A former prisoner on Robben Island, Mr Zuma was acquitted of separate rape charges last year.

A controversial figure popular with trade unions and the Communist party, he rallies his supporters with a cry of "bring me my machine gun".

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Sky

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Des Moines, Iowa - US Senator Hillary Clinton on Friday called for an independent, international probe into Benazir Bhutto's murder, saying Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf's government had no credibility.

Clinton weighed in on the crisis which has ricocheted through the US presidential race just six days before the first party nominating contests, ahead of another day trudging through snowy Iowa in search of votes.

"I'm calling for a full, independent, international organisation," Clinton said in an interview with CNN.

"I think it's critically important that we get answers and really those are due first and foremost to the people of Pakistan," Clinton said.

The former first lady suggested the probe could be along the lines of the international investigation which followed the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri in 2005.

'Oppressed a free press'

"I don't think the Pakistani government at this time under President Musharraf has any credibility at all. They have disbanded an independent judiciary, they oppressed a free press."

Clinton's intervention was the latest sign that the ex-Pakistani premier's assassination could reshape the US presidential race at a critical time, bringing questions of leadership and national security into sharper focus.

She gave the interview from her hotel room in Des Moines, in a presidential-style setting with the backdrop of an American flag.

Other candidates have also used the crisis to bolster their own claims of leadership.

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News24

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Robert Murat
Madeleine McCann suspect Robert Murat has denied further claims that he was seen near the young girl's apartment on the night she vanished, a friend has said.Two British sisters have told police they saw him outside the Ocean Club complex in Praia da Luz, Portugal, shortly after the alarm was raised, according to reports.

If true, this would not directly implicate Mr Murat in Madeleine's disappearance but it would call into question his alibi.

Mr Murat, 34, an Anglo-Portuguese ex-pat, has always strongly protested his innocence and insists he was with at home with his mother all evening.

Family friend Tuck Price today suggested the women must have mistaken him for somebody else, adding: "He wasn't there."
Annie Wiltshire, 58, of Aylesford, Kent, and Jayne Jensen, 54, of Maidstone, Kent, were on holiday in Praia da Luz at the same time as the McCanns, it was reported.

They believe they saw Mr Murat smoking cigarettes near the Ocean Club at about 10.30pm on May 3 - about half an hour after Madeleine was found to be missing.

The sisters were interviewed by British police after they returned home.

They have also contacted Metodo 3, the firm of Spanish private detectives hired by Kate and Gerry McCann, from Rothley, Leicestershire, the reports said.
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The missing girl
An unnamed source close to Metodo 3 told the Daily Mail: "Jayne remembers seeing him outside the Ocean Club, smoking cigarettes, between 10.30 and 11pm.

"Every time they see him claiming he was not there on the night, they find it ridiculous."

Three friends on holiday with the McCanns - Russell O'Brien, Rachael Oldfield and Fiona Payne - are understood to have told police they saw him near the Ocean Club on the night of May 3.

But Mr Murat's mother Jenny, 71, whose villa, named Casa Liliana, is just yards from the McCann holiday apartment, has backed his alibi.

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Sky

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Suspect McEnroe
A man accused over a Christmas Eve family massacre in the US allegedly apologised to his girlfriend's niece and nephew before shooting them both in the head.
Joseph McEnroe and Michele Anderson, both 29, are being held on suspicion of killing six of the latter's relatives near Seattle.
According to court documents, Anderson said they shot her parents at their home, then waited for her brother, sister-in-law and young niece and nephew to visit.

Brother Scott Anderson and his wife Erica were gunned down when they arrived, before McEnroe turned on the children, the documents claim.

Prosecutor Dan Satterberg alleged that McEnroe apologised to both of youngsters before he shot six-year-old Olivia and three-year-old Nathan.
Michele Anderson reportedly told detectives her brother owed her money she had loaned to him years earlier and that she was upset with her parents because they did not take her side.

When asked why he shot Erica, Olivia and Nathan, McEnroe told detectives three times: "I didn't want them to turn us in," according to the affidavit.

After the killings, McEnroe and Anderson first drove north towards Canada, then south toward Oregon, then decided to go back and pretend to discover the bodies, the prosecutor said.

The couple have been charged with six counts of aggravated first-degree murder.

If convicted, they will face the death penalty or life in prison without possibility of parole.

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Sky

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TEHRAN, Iran — Iran said Sunday that it will begin operation of the country's first nuclear power plant in the summer of 2008 using half its 1,000 megawatt capacity, the official news agency IRNA reported.

Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said the Russians, who are helping build the light-water reactor in the southern Iranian town of Bushehr, will have completed nuclear fuel shipments by the summer, paving the way for its launch.

"Half of the capacity of the Bushehr nuclear power plant will be launched in the summer of the coming year," IRNA quoted Mottaki as saying.

After months of delay, Russia began shipping nuclear fuel to Bushehr in mid-December and completed its second delivery on Friday. The Iranians have said Russia will send a total of 82 tons of nuclear fuel in eight shipments.

The process was held up by Russian claims that Iran had delayed construction payments for the reactor, but many observers suggested Moscow was also unhappy with Tehran's unwillingness to assure the international community that it was not developing nuclear arms.

Tehran heralded the initial shipment as a victory, saying it proved its nuclear program was peaceful, not a cover for weapons development as claimed by the U.S. and some of its allies.

The U.S. initially opposed Russian participation in building the Bushehr reactor and supplying it with fuel but reversed its position about a year ago to obtain Moscow's support for the first set of U.N. sanctions against Iran.

Washington also was influenced by Iran's agreement to return spent nuclear fuel from the reactor back to Russia to ensure it doesn't extract plutonium to make atomic bombs.

Russia's decision to begin shipping nuclear fuel to Iran followed a U.S. intelligence report released earlier this month that concluded Tehran had stopped its nuclear weapons program in late 2003 and had not resumed it since. Iran says it never had a weapons program.

It also came after the U.N. nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, said Iran had been truthful about its past uranium enrichment activities.

The U.S. downplayed the first delivery, and both Washington and Moscow said the supply of nuclear fuel meant Iran had no need to continue its uranium enrichment program — a process that can provide fuel for a reactor or fissile material for a bomb.

Iran insisted it would continue enriching uranium because it needed to provide fuel to a 300-megawatt light-water reactor it was building in the southwestern town of Darkhovin.

Iranian officials have said they plan to generate 20,000 megawatts of electricity through nuclear energy in the next two decades.

The U.S. has pushed through two sets of U.N. sanctions against Iran demanding it suspend uranium enrichment and has been urging Security Council members to pass a third set.

Iran has defied U.N. demands, and Washington's effort to impose harsher measures has been complicated by the recent intelligence report and resistance from Russia and China.

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FoxNews

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KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — A key Taliban commander who was reportedly kicked out of the militia said Sunday that he believed Taliban leader Mullah Omar has not signed off on the dismissal order, and blamed the report on a "conspiracy" by his enemies.

Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said a day earlier that Mansoor Dadullah, a militant commander in southern Afghanistan, had been kicked out of the Islamic militia for "disobeying orders" and conducting activities "against the Taliban's rules and regulations." Mujahid did not give details.

Dadullah told The Associated Press he does not believe he has been dismissed.

"It's not true that Mullah Omar kicked me out of the Taliban," Dadullah said by telephone. "If Mullah Omar wanted me to leave the Taliban, then he would send me the message and I would put down my weapons because he is our top commander."

Dadullah said the news that he had been dismissed was a "conspiracy by my enemies." He said he was trying to contact Omar to discuss who said he had been dismissed.

"If Mullah Omar wants me to disarm, there is no need to publish this in the media," Dadullah said. "In jihad there is no personal interest. In jihad you will be injured or killed only for the sake of Islam."

Mujahid reiterated on Sunday the order came from Omar, and said he would soon provide an audio recording with Omar ordering Dadullah out of the militia.

Dadullah rose in the militia's ranks as an important commander in southern Afghanistan after his brother, Mullah Dadullah, was killed during a military operation in Helmand province in May. Mullah Dadullah was the highest-ranking Taliban commander killed since the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.

Mansoor Dadullah said after his brother's death his fighters opened an investigation and arrested two "spies." He said a third arrest was made about three weeks ago, and new information from the arrest would soon be sent to Omar and news media.

Mullah Dadullah's body had bullet wounds to the head, chest and stomach, suggesting he was likely killed by sniper fire from a well-trained soldier at close range.

Muhibullah Mahajir, a spokesman for Mansoor Dadullah, told AP earlier Sunday some Taliban commanders were involved in Mullah Dadullah's death.

"That's why some of these commanders who were involved in the killing of Mullah Dadullah have made a conspiracy against us," said Mahajir, who has contacted AP in the past.

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FoxNews

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