Little Teodoro, as President Teodoro Obiang Nguema's son is known at home, appears to spend as little time as possible fulfilling his duties as the minister of agriculture and forestry in the west African state. Instead he flits between South Africa, France and the US, pursuing business ventures such as a failed rap label while acquiring property and a fleet of Ferraris, Lamborghinis and Bentleys - all made possible by the discovery of oil in Equatorial Guinea's waters a decade ago.

At the time, there was a promise that the country would become the "Kuwait of Africa", but it has increasingly come to look like Nigeria as a few kleptocrats get rich while the masses eke out a living.

Mr Obiang probably thought his acquisition of the Malibu house through a front company of which he is the owner would slip by largely unnoticed, particularly after there was so little comment about earlier purchases of two houses in Cape Town and a $2m penthouse flat in California. But the British anti-corruption group Global Witness spotted the sale and is publicising it as evidence that the Obiang family has followed in a long tradition of African rulers who plunder their country's wealth while their people live in poverty.

Seen from the Pacific Coast Highway, Mr Obiang's house doesn't look like much, at least not in the context of the exclusive millionaires' mansions looking out from the cliffs over the Pacific Ocean. "Oh, that's a lovely house," explained Malibu Carl yesterday, watching the surfers next to Malibu pier. "That's a hell of a piece of property right there. It's huge."

The house is hidden from prying eyes by a sheer bluff and guardhouse. But while $35m may buy a lot of house, it cannot guarantee you privacy. A stroll along Malibu pier reveals arched windows, plain, cream plaster walls and a tiled roof. Royal palm trees line the drive, and the bright red of bougainvillea stands out against the sandy hillside.

Described as a "playboy", Mr Obiang may be quite interested in meeting his neighbours. Whether they would return the interest seems unlikely. Mel Gibson lives on Serra Road, as does Britney Spears. Olivia Newton John is up there too, and so are Larry Hagman and Titanic director James Cameron. Across the road is the equally exclusive Malibu Colony, the gated community that housed most of Hollywood during the 1970s and 1980s.

"That's one of the premier estates in Malibu," says a local estate agent. He notes that Cher's house in Malibu recently went on the market at $29m.

The property belonged to a Canadian developer named Bill Connor. Rumour has it that he sold two years ago for $28m to a Disney executive (some say it was someone from Fox) before its current owner paid $35m at the beginning of this year. "Most of these sales happen very quietly," says the estate agent. "The properties don't usually hit the market."

President Obiang, who has ruled since seizing power in 1979, has decreed that the management of his country's $3bn a year in oil revenues is a state secret. That is why it is difficult to say for sure exactly how he comes to have about $700m in US bank accounts. But the president's son gave an insight into his salary in an affidavit filed with the Cape high court in South Africa in August, as part of a lawsuit against him over a commercial debt.

"Cabinet ministers and public servants in Equatorial Guinea are by law allowed to own companies that, in consortium with a foreign company, can bid for government contracts ... A cabinet minister ends up with a sizeable part of the contract price in his bank account," he testified.

Global Witness wants the US government to invoke a proclamation by President Bush nearly three years ago that bars corrupt foreign officials from entering the US and allows their assets to be seized.

But Washington is unlikely to move against Mr Obiang when it was so welcoming of his father only last April. The US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, called President Obiang a "good friend" even though her own department's annual human rights report said officials in Equatorial Guinea use torture.

Among those on the receiving end have been a group of mercenaries arrested two years ago for attempting to overthrow the regime with the backing of Mark Thatcher.

Before the oil, relations were not always so friendly. In the mid-1990s the US ambassador to Malabo was withdrawn after the state radio station said he had been spotted conjuring up his ancestors' spirits in a graveyard to put spells on President Obiang. In fact, the ambassador was the son of a Canadian airman and was tending the graves of an RAF bomber crew killed during the second world war.

But once the oil started flowing, American drillers such as ExxonMobil and ChevronTexaco began pouring billions of dollars into the country. The US diplomats were soon back in a very different frame of mind. Today, the $3bn annual oil revenues gives Equatorial Guinea's 520,000 citizens the second highest income in the world at about £26,000 per head.

But ordinary people see little of it. Most of the population live on less than a pound a day. Equatorial Guinea comes bottom in the United Nations' Human Development Index, which measures quality of life.

Three years ago, state radio declared that the president is a god who is "in permanent contact with the Almighty" and can "kill anyone without being called to account". But President Obiang is mortal after all: he is suffering from terminal prostate cancer. He has made it known he favours Little Teodoro as his successor.

Saddam Hussein, of course, has just been sentenced to death by an Iraqi special tribunal for crimes against humanity: the torture and execution of 148 Shia farmers in Dujail. This collective punishment for a failed assassination attempt took place in 1982 when he was the unchallenged ruler of his country. Saddam's second trial, for the "Anfal" campaign of extermination against the Kurds, continues. He is expected to be hanged sometime in the next few months.
It is unlikely that the low-key hearings in the ICC's modernist building in a nondescript part of The Hague will ever attract the attention given to Saddam's melodramatic trial in the green zone in Baghdad. But what happens in the Netherlands may ultimately have more far-reaching implications for international law - even though there are no gallows at the end of its judicial process.

Established in July 2002, the ICC's purpose is to provide justice for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes so that future victims have somewhere to turn to when national legal systems fail - and to ensure that the next Pol Pot, Augusto Pinochet, or Saddam Hussein - cannot act with impunity,

Attempts to set up such a court were inspired by the example of the Nuremberg and Tokyo tribunals that tried German and Japan war criminals after 1945. No agreement was possible during the cold war, so after it ended ad hoc tribunals had to be set up to deal with the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. The ICC by contrast, was intended to be a permanent institution under UN auspices.

The ICC's goal, in the words of its French registrar, Bruno Cathala, is no less than "globalised justice". Its reach though, is far from universal: so far its statute has been ratified by 104 countries - out of some 190 members of the UN. Holdouts include the US, Russia, China and India. Even for signatories, it is a court of last resort that can act only when countries are "unwilling or unable" to dispense justice themselves.

Thus the link between the Lubanga and Saddam cases. Iraq, unlike the Democratic Republic of Congo, has not signed the ICC statute, which in any case does not cover crimes committed before the court came into existence. So any sort of international trial for the Ba'athist dictator and his henchmen, as many would have liked to see, would have had to involve setting up yet another ad hoc body.

But there was powerful political pressure to hold a trial in Iraq, and in an Iraqi court. One result was that the Baghdad government interfered. There were also the more visible problems of lawyers murdered and witnesses intimidated against a background of deadly sectarian violence. Saddam also learned from Slobodan Milosevic (at the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal) how to grandstand in the dock, to challenge the authority of the court, and to get his defiant message across. The evidence though, was detailed and compelling. "It was rough justice," says the US lawyer David Crane, "but justice nevertheless."

Even America's worst enemies have to admit that without the 2003 invasion, Saddam would never have stood trial. But US support for international justice has been badly weakened by its opposition to the ICC, which it has always claimed to fear will be used to mount politically motivated and "unaccountable" prosecutions of US personnel. Bill Clinton accepted the court in principle but policy changed sharply under George Bush. When the hawkish US diplomat John Bolton reneged on Clinton's pledge he described it as "the happiest moment in my government service."

Yet not only the US objects. Russia likewise opposes any suggestion that its actions in Chechnya, for example, might attract legal sanction. China has parallel concerns. Israel, another significant non-signatory, fears prosecutions over its behaviour in occupied Palestinian territories - like the incident in which 18 Gazan civilians were killed by shelling this week.

Still, the court's reach is fairly limited. Though the UN security council can ask the ICC to launch investigations, it has no police force or coercive powers of its own. Big decisions depend, as always, on the world's big powers; experience suggests they are always likely to be pre-disposed to conservative judgements and to put peace and reconciliation ahead of justice in resolving situations of conflict.

Experts fear too sharp a focus on Africa; all five referrals to the ICC are from that continent, suggesting to some a selective approach to justice that deals with easy cases from weak countries while leaving the strong alone. ICC prosecutors have issued arrest warrants for five commanders of the Lord's Resistance Army in Uganda, are investigating the conflict in Darfur - with the blessing of the US - and have been asked by the Central African Republic to open an investigation into war crimes there.

There's no shortage of work for this fledgling institution to do in the global jungle, but there are plenty of hurdles to negotiate too. The Lubanga case may point to the way ahead for the ICC. It merits close attention.

Gov. Rick Perry pardoned Mumphrey in March, clearing his record and making him eligible for compensation. Under state law, a person pardoned based on innocence is eligible for up to $25,000 for each year in prison with a cap at $500,000.

Mumphrey recently got his first payment of $226,041, according to the Texas Comptroller's Office. An official there said Mumphrey will have to report the compensation to the Internal Revenue Service. It will be up to tax officials to decide if and how much he will be taxed.

Mumphrey, who was 42 when he was released, declined to talk about his plans for the money.

His brother, Charles, confessed to the rape while serving time in jail for unauthorized use of a motor vehicle, shortly after his brother's release. No criminal charges will be filed against Charles Mumphrey because the statute of limitations has expired, prosecutors said.

Merkel, who has fought hard to improve German-US relations since taking office one year ago, set her sights on US President George W. Bush and others in his administration who have questioned a link between carbon emissions and global warming.

"The scientific evidence is growing ever stronger" that the planet will face catastrophic consequences due to global warming, she said. "The EU cannot solve the world's environmental problems on its own but it should be a leader," Merkel said.

She said energy efficiency and the use of renewable energy were also crucial elements of security policy considering the concentration of oil and gas supplies in volatile regions of the world.

Merkel said she would work under the German EU presidency to improve ties with producer, transit and consumer countries on energy issues, and to create better conditions for the expansion and maintenance of energy infrastructure.

With an eye to Russia, she said it must be a goal of the bloc to fight the use of energy supplies as a means to exercise political pressure on other countries.

"This is another area in which Europe must speak with one voice and thus strengthen its voice," she said.

After the European Commission's report on Turkey Wednesday, Merkel warned that Ankara must meet its obligations, particularly its promise to lift trade restrictions against EU member Cyprus.

"I strongly support the efforts by the Finnish EU presidency to mediate to solve this problem in the final weeks of its presidency," she said.

"But I say just as clearly -- the (Commission) progress report is clear. Turkey must meet its obligations by the end of the year. Otherwise the EU will draw appropriate conclusions. There cannot and will not be a simple 'steady on'."

Returning to transatlantic ties, Merkel said she would work toward improving sometimes fraught trade relations with Washington.

"This is less about removing tariffs and more about moving closer together on various regulations, for example on product standards and regulation of capital markets," she said, adding that the two sides could do more together to enforce copyright protection on international markets.

Merkel also called for a stronger EU security and defense policy, but insisted that it should never be seen "in opposition to the transatlantic alliance", NATO.

She said the situation in Kosovo would impose new demands on the EU, adding that because NATO troops were still needed in the region, both sides must coordinate their efforts smoothly.

Kosovo has been administered by the United Nations since mid-1999, after a 78-day NATO bombing campaign drove out Serbian forces over a brutal crackdown against ethnic Albanian civilians.

The province remains tense more than seven years later, with ethnic Albanian frustrations over the long process occasionally flaring into violence.

NATO, which still has about 17,000 troops in Kosovo, was sharply criticized for failing to stop anti-Serb riots there in March 2004.