Mr Miliband said he was given no news of Mr Gao's whereabouts.

ECONOMIST: Chinese foreign policy

Last month, Matthews Asia fund manager, Richard Gao, told Forbes that he expected inflation pressures in China to ease by the second half.

FORBES: China's Resource Demand Feeding its Own Inflation

Yet the award is justly Mr Gao's for the favour he did two decades ago in helping introduce cultural modernism to China.

ECONOMIST: The wanderer��s reward

This could be considered credible as he has often been seen in Timbuktu or Gao, the BBC's West Africa correspondent Thomas Fessy reports.

BBC: Islamist commander Abou Zeid's death in Mali 'probable'

Secretary Chertoff publicly spoke to many of these issues weeks before Katrina hit, and he identified many of the recommendations raised in the GAO preliminary report in public testimony in October.

NPR: Fragmented Government Slowed Katrina Response

In April of that year, Gao applied for overdraft financing for the gas station he co-owned with his mother in Rotorua, New Zealand, according to court records.

CNN: 'Accidental millionaire' pleads guilty to theft

Gao's mayor Sadou Harouna Diallo told the BBC he was hiding inside the city hall and could hear shooting outside at about midday.

BBC: Mali: Islamist incursion in Gao 'repelled'

Walker said he had decided to make the changes before Defense Department officials had contacted the GAO.

CNN: Report finds little progress in Iraq