The strict version of sharia law practised in Nigeria’s north is illegal under the country’s constitution, the government declared yesterday – days before a woman sentenced to death by stoning for adultery hears an appeal court verdict on her case. His letter does not refer to the Hussaini case.Under sharia law, stoning, amputation and flogging have been introduced in the past two years.Supporters of sharia argue that it applies only to Muslims who have willingly submitted to its jurisdiction. However, the letter from Mr Agabi, quoted in several Nigerian newspapers, states that any court “which imposes discriminatory punishment is deliberately flouting the constitution”.President Olusegun Obasanjo has said he would prefer Ms Hussaini’s execution not to be carried out, and human rights groups have called for federal intervention.”As a respected member of the world community, we cannot be indifferent to these protests,” Mr Agabi wrote.General Obasanjo received significant support from northern Muslims at the last election, although he himself is a southern Christian. Observers say the government’s policy swing yesterday was influenced by growing numbers of voters in the north expressing disillusionment with sharia law..

Leaders of rich countries assembled in Monterrey, Mexico yesterday, promising to increase aid to the world’s poorest nations. But their pledges were likely to fall well short of the doubling of assistance to $100bn which international agencies say is needed to make a serious start on tackling the problem. Currently, 1.2bn people, a fifth of the world’s population, are below this level, living on less than $1 a day.That formal promise by the richest 22 countries has been given new urgency by the 11 September attacks in the United States, underlining for many the link between poverty and terrorism. No one, Mr Annan said, “can feel comfortable or safe while so many are suffering and deprived.” Even the US President, George Bush, who was arriving at the meeting last night, made the same point as he announced last week a major increase in aid from the US – long criticised for the meagre level of its foreign aid, which is barely 0.1 per cent of GDP, or about a third of the level of Europe.Indeed, continuing complaints by these critics, and the promise of an extra $7bn from the European Union, seems to have forced a last-minute spurt of generosity from Washington. The original plan was for a $5bn increase spread over three years, representing annual increases of $1.6bn from the current level of $10bn. The European Union, by contrast, gives a combined $25bn.But amid some confusion, Mr Bush’s aides appeared to have revised the sum upward sharply.

The annual increase will be $1.6bn in fiscal 2004, $3.3bn in 2005, and $5bn in 2006 and subsequent years, assuming tough US criteria are met.The aid will be granted from a so-called Millennium Challenge Fund only if countries meet specific targets and demonstrate that the new resources are not being wasted, or siphoned off by corrupt rulers.”I’m not interested in funding corruption, period,” Mr Bush said in an interview with Latin American journalists this week. “If a country’s rulers are stealing money, they’re not going to get it out of this fund, and hopefully not out of any fund.” Even so the US move, though still considered inadequate by the development community, has been widely welcomed as a change of heart by Washington. The biggest impact has been made by Mr Bush’s acknowledgement that terrorism draws many of its recruits from the vast pool of the world’s poor, and that military, economic and diplomatic pressure will not alone succeed in stamping it out.By contrast Japan, the world’s largest aid donor – with current contributions of about $13bn a year – had yet to announced an increase in its assistance, pleading the chronic weakness of its own domestic economy.There will be other arguments in Monterrey too. Washington wants money to be given as grants, in contrast to EU arguments that aid still take the form of loans, however soft their terms. Otherwise, the Europeans say, the World Bank and other donor agencies will become mere charity foundations, rather than the credit co-operative it is today.Others, led by Michael Moore, the president of the World Trade Organization, are calling for further trade liberalisation as the best means of reducing poverty.. Cox, a Lloyd’s of London insurer, announced it was winding down its commercial insurance business yesterday due to heavy losses sustained chiefly by the attacks on the World Trade Centre.