Former British prime minister Tony Blair overrode Cabinet colleagues who had doubts about going to war against Iraq, his former press chief revealed in diaries published on Monday. The Blair Years by Alastair Campbell also gives behind-the-scenes insights into Blair’s relations with United States President George Bush.
The Italian experience of small and medium businesses will help South Africa in the 2010 Soccer World Cup and beyond, Trade and Industry Minister Mandisi Mpahlwa said on Monday. ”Italy’s experience and culture of small, medium and family-owned businesses will help in the long term,” the minister said on the first day of the SA-Italy Business Forum.
Belgian rider Geert Steegmans won the second stage of the Tour de France, a 168,5km run between Dunkirk in France and Ghent in Belgium, on Monday. The Quick Step cyclist prevailed in a bunch sprint marred by a mass pile-up that stopped a sizeable portion of the peloton in its tracks 3km from the finish.
Four men were convicted on Monday of plotting to bomb London’s transport system on July 21 2005 in a botched attempt to replicate Islamist suicide bombings that had killed 52 people two weeks earlier. Police said the men, Muslims of African origin, would have caused carnage on a similar scale to the attacks a fortnight before.
Africa is suffering a crisis of leadership and its heads of state must show more mutual confidence and solidarity if they want to advance continental integration, the African Union’s top diplomat said on Monday. Alpha Oumar Konare, who chairs the AU Commission, was giving his analysis of an inconclusive AU summit in Ghana last week.
Zimbabwe’s main opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, on Monday predicted chaos as a result of the government’s clampdown on the business community, which has seen the prices of many goods more than halved and over 1Â 300 business people arrested.
The importance of the Proudly South African campaign is undisputed, the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) said about the troubled organisation on Monday. Last month the Proudly South African campaign denied media reports that the DTI had withdrawn its support.
Big manufacturing and construction companies were the hardest hit on Monday as a national strike by metal and engineering workers got under way. Smaller firms appeared to have been the least affected, said the Steel and Engineering Industry Federation of South Africa.
People living in communities surrounding a large shallow lake in China have been overrun by field mice after flood waters drove the rodents out of islands on the lake, state media reported on Monday. The mouse invasion began on June 23 when the Yangtze River flooded, raising the water level in central China’s Dongting Lake.
South Africa’s transport system is becoming increasingly inadequate in responding to export-led growth, Transport Minister Jeff Radebe said on Monday. Speaking at the South African Transport Conference in Pretoria, Radebe said road networks were congested and ”bursting at the seams”. A resource not fully used was sea transport.