EVERYBODY in the business knows that the Atlantic population of bluefin tuna is in worse trouble than the Pacific population, but how much worse?

CARMAKER Daihatsu is recalling 274 551 vehicles in Japan because of a number of possible defects.

MEXICAN tycoon Carlos Slim is the world’s richest person, knocking Microsoft founder Bill Gates into second spot, as the wealth of the world’s billionaires grew by 50% over the last year, Forbes magazine said on Wednesday.

SOUTH Africa’s ruling ANC is asking Winnie Mandela to clarify comments attributed to her which starkly criticise her ex-husband, Nelson.

“ENOUGH. No more. The army’s morale is broken,” said General Ilker Basbug, the chief of staff of the Turkish army, but the humiliations continue.

EVERYBODY assumes that Mossad, the Israeli foreign intelligence service, carried out the murder of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, a senior Hamas commander, in Dubai last month. The Israeli government will neither confirm nor deny it, but the average Israeli citizen is sure of it, and quite pleased by it. After all, who else was going to go after him?

EIGHT months ago (and 10 months before regional elections were due to be held all over the country), French president Nicolas Sarkozy raised a vital issue before the French parliament.

ASKED how his son came by his unusual name, Pa Ebele Jonathan once told a reporter that as soon as the boy was born, “I instinctively realised that this child has that element of fortune.”

AT the Iraq inquiry in London on January 29, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair found a new way to defend his decision to join George W Bush in invading Iraq in 2003: the what-if defence. What if they hadn’t invaded Iraq, and Saddam Hussein had remained in power there?

FOUR years on from the last London conference on Yemen, the country’s problems have only got worse.

LAST November we had “Climategate”, in which somebody hacked into the e-mails at the University of East Anglia and discovered that Professor Phil Jones, head of the university’s Climate Research Unit, had been trying to exclude scientific papers he regarded as flawed from being considered by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has blamed failings by Nigerian leaders for increasing “radicalisation” among young Nigerians.

SOUTH African president Jacob Zuma dismissed on Wednesday fears of any attack at the World Cup later this year, promising South Africa would host a safe competition which would leave a legacy of economic development.

IS it megalomania or just a political stunt? Senegal’s President Abdoulaye Wade may not even know the answer himself, but his offer to let quake-stricken Haitians resettle in his west African country certainly qualifies as the most flamboyant response to the tragedy in Haiti.   

ENERGY and Power Development minister Elias Mudzuri, co-Home Affairs minister Giles Mutsekwa, and Mines deputy minister Murisi Zwizwai are the three ministers being probed by the MDC-T for allegedly engaging in corrupt activities.

A top MDC-T official who sits on both the national council and national executive committee, who preferred not to be named, told the Zimbabwe Independent that the party was in the process of gathering evidence on the three and upon completion of investigations they would be brought before the national council for disciplinary action.

MINES Minister Obert Mpofu sidestepped the Zimbabwe Mining Development Corporation (ZMDC) and the Minerals Marketing Corporation of Zimbabwe (MMCZ) when he appointed the board of Condurango Resources, a joint venture diamond mining operation, amid allegations that he appointed his sister-in-law and his personal assistant to the board.

Condurango Resources is a company trading as Mbada Diamonds. It is in a joint venture with the ZMDC and New Reclamation Group.

KEY southern African leaders present last night in the Mozambican capital Maputo for the inauguration of President Armando Guebuza were expected to deliberate on the political crisis in Zimbabwe.

THE constitution-making outreach programme is likely to be delayed by more than two weeks due to financial constraints and bickering over the role of government departments in the process.

THE chief state witness in the trial of MDC-T treasurer Roy Bennett, Michael Peter Hitschman, yesterday denied accusations he was being inconsistent in court to save the deputy Agriculture minister-designate from terrorism charges.

Johannesburg - While the campaign to drive white farmers from their farms intensifies, the Zimbabwean government is giving 100 000ha of land to controversial South African businessman Billy Rautenbach.