Former White House press secretary Scott McClellan says in a new book that United States President George Bush ”veered terribly off course” and was not ”open and forthright on Iraq,” a media report said on Tuesday. In the memoir due out next week, McClellan also says Bush relied on ”propaganda” to sell the war.
Desmond Tutu, the South African archbishop, met the former Palestinian prime minister and Hamas leader, Ismail Haniyeh, in Gaza at the start of a much-delayed United Nations investigation into the shelling by the Israeli military of a Palestinian house which killed 18 members of a single family in Beit Hanoun.
Africa’s future economic growth should happen through trade and not aid, said President Thabo Mbeki in Japan on Wednesday. ”Without discounting the importance of aid, improved terms of trade for Africa is critical to ensure its full integration into the global economy,” said Mbeki at the international conference on African development summit at Yokohama.
Andile Mngxitama’s critique of the HRC’s finding on blacks-only membership organisations has stirred up a hornet’s nest. Ferial Haffajee asked him why he is so angry.
I wanted to live in the city. Well, the edge of the city. I’m not crazy. So I settled on a spot close enough to smell the danger, but not close enough to taste it. I was going to live like Jerry Seinfeld and Carrie Bradshaw. And, for the most part, you might be surprised to learn it’s just like it is on TV. Compared with suburbanites, city dwellers dress better, are funnier, and have more sex.
Two weeks ago the Congolese national assembly cautiously approved a $9-billion deal between the Democratic Republic of Congo and China, but warned that it would be watching closely to see that the country’s best interests are protected. Parliament’s decision comes after a week of political wrangling, during which the opposition strongly opposed the deal.
Malawi’s former president Bakili Muluzi on Tuesday laughed off accusations that he was trying to topple his successor as his lawyers launched a high court bid to end his house arrest. Muluzi has denied any knowledge of documents which purportedly linked him to a coup against President Bingu wa Mutharika.
Sports and Recreation Minister Makhenkesi Stofile on Tuesday voiced his concern over the slow pace of transformation in South African rugby. Stofile said appeals to officials to use the recent success of the Springboks in France as a catalyst for transformation had fallen on deaf ears.
Foreign children have the same right as their South African counterparts to be protected, Social Development Minister Zola Skweyiya said on Tuesday. He said it was sad that children were once again bearing the brunt of xenophobic violence, losing parents and loved ones, as well as their homes.
The seven students expelled from the Mafikeng Campus of the North-West University (NWU) have been granted permission to continue with studies and examinations. Spokesperson Lester Mpolokeng said the seven students either expelled or suspended from the university would remain provisionally suspended.