Iraq’s prime minister-designate Nuri al-Maliki said on Tuesday that the line-up for the country’s first permanent government of the post-Saddam Hussein era was almost ready, after months of tortuous negotiations. "We will finalise the Cabinet today [Tuesday] or tomorrow [Wednesday] and will present the new government to the Parliament this week," he told reporters.
The contentious issue of floor-crossing will be raised in Parliament next week, Democratic Alliance leader Tony Leon promised on Tuesday. Speaking at the Africa Dialogue lecture series at the University of Pretoria, Leon said the practice has become almost universally detested by voters.
The Democratic Alliance has urged President Thabo Mbeki to broaden the Donen commission’s terms of reference to include a probe into allegations of African National Congress involvement in the Iraqi oil-for-food scandal. The Freedom Front Plus also wants the commission’s terms of reference extended.
Italy’s Parliament failed to elect a new president of the republic in a second round of voting on Tuesday, with the country’s two opposing blocs engaged in intense negotiations aimed at resolving the political stalemate. Giorgio Napolitano, a highly respected life senator backed by Romano Prodi’s centre-left coalition, has emerged as the front-runner.
Delegates from West and Central African countries gathered in Gabon’s capital Libreville on Tuesday to open talks on a joint accord to fight the trafficking of children and women that plagues the continent. Gabon’s Foreign Minister, Jean-Francois Ndongou, opened the session, saying ”better regional cooperation is necessary” to combat trafficking.
The United Nations nuclear watchdog said on Tuesday that it had adequate monitoring measures in place at a site where Brazil says it is now enriching uranium. ”There are safeguard measures that have been agreed that will meet the agency’s requirements,” said Marc Vidricaire, spokesperson for the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency.
The United States has renewed its terrorism alert for East Africa, warning of possible attacks at a time of surging maritime piracy throughout the region, the US embassy in Kenya said Tuesday. The advisory, issued by the State Department in Washington, reminds US citizens that Islamic extremists are active and may be plotting attacks in East Africa.
Self-confessed German cannibal Armin Meiwes, who killed and ate a man he met through the internet, was on Tuesday given a life sentence after he was found guilty of murder. The court found that the man, known as the cannibal of Rotenburg, had killed his victim to satisfy his sexual urges. Meiwes (44) immediately signalled that he was going to appeal the sentence.
A Catholic group on Tuesday called on Christians to starve themselves to death in protest at the release of <i>The Da Vinci Code</i> at cinemas in India, as others burned copies of the novel. The Catholic Secular Forum said it hoped thousand of people would attend a protest on Wednesday in Mumbai to burn effigies of Dan Brown, the author of the best-selling novel.
About 800 Rwandans out of nearly 20 000 who fled to neighbouring Burundi to seek refuge for fear of appearing before local genocide courts have voluntarily returned home in the past month, officials said on Tuesday. Didace Nzikoruriho, in charge of refugee affairs at Burundi’s interior ministry, said the gradual return was expected to end in the next three months.