OWN CORRESPONDENT, Pretoria | Sunday
UNITED States Secretary of State Madeleine Albright on Saturday reaffirmed the United States’s commitment to uplifting Africa, saying the next American president had an responsibility to create a better life for all the continent’s people.
“Africa is not optional to the United States. We have a responsibility and national interest here and we need to follow that through,” Albright told reporters after meeting Foreign Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma in Pretoria.
Albright is serving what is probably her last term in the Clinton administration before a new president takes office on 20 January next year.
She arrived in South Africa on Thursday, kicking off a regional tour which will also include Mauritius and Botswana. Shortly after meeting Dlamini-Zuma, Albright left for the Indian Ocean Island.
During her visit, she toured an Aids research clinic and met with President Thabo Mbeki and Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
Dlamini-Zuma reiterated Albright’s comments, saying the US, as one of the leading nations of the world, had a responsibility and an obligation to participate fully in creating a better world.
“That better world means making sure that democracy takes root and more importantly that no child goes hungry.
“The US administration that’s coming in has a big responsibility on its hands,” Dlamini-Zuma said.
She said the US, as an influential nation on the United Nations Security Council, should ensure that there was peace and stability in the world.
Albright said part of her desire to come to SA was to inform incoming US policy makers that the continent cannot be ignored.
Meanwhile, in Washington, a closely divided US Supreme Court has granted Republican George W Bush’s plea to halt hand recounts of ballots in Florida, votes Democrat Al Gore needs to win the presidency, and said it would hear a Bush challenge to the recounts.
The high court in a brief order by a 5-4 vote granted Bush’s emergency plea for a stay of the Florida Supreme Court ruling that ordered hand recounts of tens of thousands of ballots in Florida’s contested presidential election.
At issue was Friday’s Florida Supreme Court ruling that also cut Bush’s lead in the state to just 154 votes. Both Bush and Gore need Florida’s 25 Electoral College votes to win the presidency.
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