Ferrari’s Michael Schumacher emerged with the victory in a United States Grand Prix that fell little short of farce on on Sunday after the withdrawal of 14 Formula One cars running on suspect Michelin tyres left only six cars in the race. All seven of the teams supplied by Michelin formed up on the grid, but were back in the pits at the end of the warm-up lap.
Paul Wolfowitz, the new head of the World Bank and close ally of United States President George Bush, said on Sunday he was returning from a week-long trip to Africa to urge the Bush administration to help fund a big aid push for the continent, saying he regarded it as being on the move and full of real partners with whom the west could work.
South Africa’s richly plural civil society was forged in the struggle for liberation, but over the past five years its impact on policy and legislation has become less effective than it should be. The African National Congress has made the shift from liberation movement to governing party, but civil society has not quite figured out how to move beyond its old, oppositional role, writes Yasmin Sooka of the Black Sash.
The government is set to climb down on black economic empowerment (BEE) funding requirements when it unveils the final draft of the BEE Codes of Good Practice this week. A source privy to the drafting process said that the contentious requirements will be loosened. The Codes of Good Practice were unveiled in December, and have since been through an intensive consultation process.
The wheels have definitely come off this thing. This week I have had to report to a bunch of youth-like characters who have temporarily taken over the editorship of this newspaper – all in the name of Youth Day. I suppose things could have been worse. And I guess you have to remember that we were all youths once, sometime way back in the mists of time.
Burundians had bigger things to think about this week than their peace
broker Jacob Zuma getting the sack. With parliamentary elections less than three weeks away, Burundians are preoccupied with herding the last rebel group still at arms into the peace fold. They are also dealing with the human rights implications of maintaining good relations with their tough Rwandan neighbour.
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British Prime Minister Tony Blair will warn his European partners in the final two weeks before the crucial Gleneagles G8 summit that unless they dismantle the R350-billion Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), Africa will never free itself from poverty.
World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz ”took his hat off” to President Thabo Mbeki on Saturday for acting against corruption. Wolfowitz, who took charge of the World Bank two weeks ago, met with Mbeki and Manuel to discuss ways fighting poverty on the continent.
The Zimbabwean government has started targeting rural areas in a sweeping blitz on crime and shanties that has already left tens of thousands homeless and destitute in the country’s major towns. Bands of armed police have gone on the rampage, demolishing and torching backyard shacks and makeshift shop stalls in a campaign that has drawn widespread international condemnation.