The trade union movement last week celebrated the assurance by Minister of Public Enterprises Alec Erwin that the wholesale sell-off of state-owned assets was off the menu and that labour would in future be consulted on the restructuring of state enterprises. However, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) remained wary of aspects of Erwin’s watershed speech in Parliament.
Deputy President Jacob Zuma chaired the meeting of the African National Congress committee that selected the organisation’s representatives to the parliamentary body that is dealing with the public protector’s findings on the National Prosecuting Authority.
The international football body Fifa is no charity organisation and it demands target revenues from the once-every-four-years World Cup tournaments. SA 2010 Bid Committee CEO Danny Jordaan gave this warning to the Black Empowerment Forum’s Sandton branch at a function on Thursday evening. He said Fifa wanted to earn ,8-billion ”to take home to Zurich” from the South African event.
East Timor’s President Xanana Gusmao believes his impoverished country of 800 000 people will become a failed state unless Australia relinquishes its claim to 80% of royalties from rich oil and gas deposits in the Timor Sea. The Timor Sea, which lies between Australia and East Timor, contains two major gas fields — Greater Sunrise and Bayu Undan. It is also rich in oil deposits.
The export of oil from Iraq was brought to a halt last week after attacks on two key pipelines and the assassination of a top oil executive dealt a fresh blow to United States plans to hand over sovereignty at the end of the month. The attacks sent the global price of US light oil up 26 US cents to ,45 a barrel and forced Opec, already pumping out extra oil to meet soaring demand, to step in.
Equatorial Guinea this week accused Spain of trying to overthrow its government in an alleged plot by foreign mercenaries to kill the president. In an interview with The Guardian, President Teodoro Obiang’s special adviser, Miguel Mifuno, accused Madrid of sending a warship to the country with 500 marines on board.
Ariel Sharon, Israel’s Prime Minister, escaped corruption charges this week after the attorney general decided there was not enough evidence against him. Sharon and his son, Gilad, were accused of helping Israeli entrepreneur David Appel to promote a plan to develop a holiday resort on a Greek island, in return for payments for political campaigns and the family’s farm.
The Eurosceptic United Kingdom Independence Party (Ukip) vote looks set to become a permanent feature of the British political landscape but is likely to lead to a third-term Labour victory by default, according to a Guardian/ICM poll. The poll confirms that Ukip did the most damage to the Tory vote in the Euro elections.
”This column is a celebration of the re-election last week of Ken Livingstone as Lord Mayor of London. There are three reasons to celebrate”. Richard Calland argues that there are political leaders everywhere who can learn from the Livingstone’s re-election.
Former World Cup-winning Springbok captain Francois Pienaar was on Friday revealed as the chief executive of South Africa’s 2011 Rugby World Cup Bid Committee. Pienaar (37) will attempt to follow in the footsteps of Soccer Bid chief Danny Jordaan, who successfully bid to bring the Soccer World Cup to SA in 2010, and bring the rugby showpiece to these shores for the second time, a year after the football showpiece.