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/ 29 February 2008
France will renegotiate all its defence accords with African countries, President Nicolas Sarkozy said on Thursday in a move that could scale back France’s military support for some of its closest allies. France has defence cooperation agreements with several former colonies under which its forces provide varying degrees of military assistance.
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/ 9 February 2008
The festive tone that once marked South African President Thabo Mbeki’s State of the Nation speeches was absent when he outlined his priorities for 2008 on Friday, two months after losing control of his ruling party. There was less cheering, singing and dancing as Mbeki’s motorcade pulled up to the Parliament buildings.
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/ 31 January 2008
South Africa’s crippling power crisis will not put off investors nor limit its ability to stage the 2010 Soccer World Cup, Public Enterprises Minister Alec Erwin said on Wednesday. Rolling power cuts have plagued homes, businesses and the mining industry in South Africa for weeks and are likely to continue for about five years, according to state power utility Eskom.
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/ 10 December 2007
Archbishop Desmond Tutu accused the United States and Britain on Monday of pursuing policies like those of South Africa’s apartheid-era government by detaining terrorism suspects without trial. He said the detention of suspected al-Qaeda members at the US naval base in Guantánamo Bay was a ”huge blot on a democracy”.
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/ 6 December 2007
South Africa will not include maize in the initial stages of the country’s biofuels policy in order to keep a lid on high food prices, the Department of Minerals and Energy said on Thursday. The decision followed the South African Cabinet’s approval of a long-awaited biofuels plan, which officials hope will revive the ailing agriculture industry.
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/ 5 November 2007
African nations are failing to control tuberculosis and could be overwhelmed by drug resistant strains of the infectious lung disease, with dire implications for the war on HIV/Aids, a leading Aids activist said on Monday. ”The explosion of tuberculosis on the continent is combined with the explosion and advance of the HIV epidemic,” said Zackie Achmat of the Treatment Action Campaign.
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/ 13 September 2007
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) has dropped an appeal to rugby fans to boycott shirts supporting the Springboks after the manufacturers agreed that most will in future be made locally, not imported. The move comes during the Rugby World Cup tournament in France. The Springboks, one of the favourites to lift the trophy, take on Cup holders England on Friday.
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/ 13 September 2007
South Africa on Wednesday marked the 30th anniversary of Steve Biko’s murder as the country’s current leaders face accusations they have neglected the poor masses. His legacy is a rallying cry for some of the discontented, who believe the ANC leadership have placed the interests of the business community above those of the country as a whole.
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/ 11 September 2007
A Mitchells Plain court on Tuesday postponed a hearing for Cape Town mayor Helen Zille and 10 others who were arrested on Sunday during a protest against drug lords in a suburb of the city. Zille made a brief appearance in a magistrate’s court to face charges that she had participated in an illegal gathering.
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/ 3 September 2007
The leader of South Africa’s main opposition party on Monday said floor-crossing would not change the balance of power in Cape Town, the only major city not controlled by the ruling African National Congress (ANC). The DA opposes floor-crossing, which it says favours the ANC and weakens democracy.