South Africa will make it easier for black people to buy predominantly white-owned farms under a controversial land-redistribution programme, Minister of Agriculture and Land Affairs Lulama Xingwana said on Friday. South Africa’s government has vowed to give its black majority a 30% slice of the country’s farmland by the end of 2014.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy unveiled a broad-based Cabinet on Friday, naming popular leftist Bernard Kouchner as foreign minister in a slimline government that radically reshaped the economic ministries. Maintaining an election promise, Sarkozy appointed seven women to his 15-strong team.
The Pan African Parliament (PAP) on Friday called on the South African government to improve the protection of its officials after an MP was robbed in Midrand on Wednesday. A new MP for Mauritania, Diye Ba, was held at gunpoint on arriving at the Town Lodge in Midrand, from the airport, PAP spokesperson Khalid Abdu Dahab said.
South African business should do more to identify trade opportunities with China, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Aziz Pahad said on Friday. Speaking about the massive trade imbalance between South Africa and China, he said the Chinese were not the only ones to blame as they have often asked South Africa to look at what more could be done.
Deep-sea explorers said on Friday they have salvaged what could be the richest shipwreck treasure in history, bringing home 17 tonnes of 400-year-old silver and gold coins from an undisclosed site in the Atlantic Ocean with an estimated value of -million. ”For this colonial era, I think [the find] is unprecedented,” said a rare-coin expert.
British police are hunting a blue-throated Amazon parrot called Chelsea that screeches when anyone mentions Manchester United. The bird was stolen from its owner’s garden this week. The family pet, which is tame and able to tell people its name, was taken from a home in the English Midlands on Tuesday night.
It was acceptable for a television documentary on the baby Jordan-Leigh Norton murder case to be broadcast without the director of public prosecutions viewing it in advance, the Supreme Court of Appeal ruled on Friday. The accused in the case, Dina Rodrigues, and her co-accused were convicted earlier this month.
Opposition parties on Friday demanded answers on the troubled electronic national traffic information system, following allegations the Auditor General had warned of problems before the system was introduced. The Inkatha Freedom Party said it has urgently tabled questions in Parliament to Transport Minister Jeff Radebe.
Businesswoman Danisa Baloyi has repaid an interest-free loan of just less than R8-million she received from financial services company Fidentia Holdings, her spokesperson Dominic Ntsele confirmed on Friday. He said the amount, of R7,95-million, was repaid to Fidentia’s curators on Wednesday, in the form of two bank cheques.
The FA Cup final, one of the landmark events in the global sporting year, finally returns home to Wembley Stadium on Saturday after a seven-year absence. Although a few matches have been played there, the stadium officially opens its doors for the first time when Manchester United meet Chelsea in the final for the second time in 13 years.