Nigeria’s new Finance Minister Shamsuddeen Usman said on Thursday he would accelerate economic transformation and sustain macro-economic stability achieved under a reform programme launched in 2003. In his first news conference since taking office, Usman also said the government would amend the 2007 budget, mostly to fund a 15% public-sector pay rise.
Recommendations by a parliamentary committee for the National Youth Commission to form part of an overarching human rights body would further undermine youth development, the African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL) said on Wednesday.
As many as 60 people within the CIA read a cable referring to two of the 19 hijackers involved in the attacks on America on September 11 2001 before the event, yet the information was not shared with the parts of the organisation able to do anything about it, according to the agency’s own internal investigation.
The African National Congress (ANC) parliamentary caucus has expressed concern over the South African National Editors’ Forum (Sanef) stance in the saga between the Sunday Times and Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang.
Finance Minister Trevor Manuel on Tuesday defended South Africa’s quiet diplomacy toward Zimbabwe, saying that foreign intervention to bring about a regime change risked unleashing turmoil like in Iraq. He told lawmakers that South Africa — the top regional powerbroker — was not in a position to dictate political and economic policy to Zimbabwe.
Nine years after millions took to the streets of the capital to celebrate victory amid the euphoria of one of the most successful Soccer World Cup tournaments ever, the rugby equivalent is failing to ignite similar enthusiasm among the French. While the multi-ethnic population living in the shadow of Stade de France could identify with the 1998 soccer team, rugby is seen as an elitist sport.
In a little more than two weeks’ time, the Springboks will set out to win back the World Cup they won in 1995. It was a wonderful day for the new South African rainbow nation, just a year after the country’s first democratic elections and just three years after the mighty Springbok rugby team was allowed back into international sport.
Bernard Kouchner, the French Foreign Minister, held talks on Monday with Iraqi leaders in the first visit by a French minister to Baghdad since Paris’s opposition to the United States-led invasion in 2003. The highly symbolic three-day visit marked France’s wish to forge a role in Iraq and build bridges with the US.
The woman who became the unofficial face of the millions of illegal immigrants striving to remain in the United States has been deported to her native Mexico almost a year to the day after she took refuge in a church in Chicago. Elvira Arellano was arrested as she made her first foray out of her self-imposed sanctuary.
The African National Congress’s national working committee has expressed "deep concern and outrage" at the latest reports in the <i>Sunday Times</i> newspaper on Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, calling them "nothing more than character assassination".