DINNER PARTY INTEL: Soldiers spooking Mozambique

1. Soldiers spooking Moz

When Mozambique decided to pay its army in cash in March, 7,000 soldiers did not pitch for pay parade. 

Carta de Moçambique reported this month that these “ghost soldiers” were among the irregularities detected where children of former soldiers, generals, colonels and politicians were collecting salaries having never had a day’s military training. Much of the money was channelled to senior government officials.

Payments are now made electronically.

2. UP is no ET

UFOs are so last century. The unidentified flying objects are now “unexplained phenomena”, one of which appeared in a previously classified video last week during a Pentagon briefing in the US Congress.

The video showed a fleeting image of a reflective spherical object speeding past a fighter jet. In the first congressional hearing in more than 50 years to focus on UFOs, or UPs in today’s acronym, Pentagon officials had no explanations, but testified under oath that they had no evidence of aliens landing on Earth.

3. Sound of silence

They have long been a vanishing brood and now the last of them has gone. Rosmarie Trapp, a member of the singing family made famous by the musical Sound of Music, died on May 13 aged 93.

Trapp, who dropped the “von” from her name years ago, was the daughter of Georg and Maria Augusta (Kutschera) von Trapp, the would-be nun who became a governess with the family and eventually married the baron.