Cherie Blair repeatedly urged her husband to sack Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown as she became incensed by his behaviour towards the prime minister, a family friend of the Blairs has disclosed. Barry Cox, who has known the couple for 30 years, said that while the relationship between Blair and his chancellor had been strained since the mid-1990s, the prime minister finally began to believe the worst of his successor during his final year in office.
South Africans may hope the ruling African National Congress (ANC) finds new ways to fight social ills at its conference this week, but any policy debate will likely be overshadowed by a succession battle that has plunged the party into turmoil. Analysts say they expect closed-door meetings to focus on forming alliances ahead of a congress in December that will choose a new leader for the party.
The issue of a uniform South African sports symbol will be discussed at the upcoming African National Congress (ANC) policy conference, party spokesperson Smuts Ngonyama said on Friday. ”We want to harmonise the national symbols of the country. One logo for all sports,” he said. Ngonyama said the public would also be given a say in the possible name change.
The African National Congress’s (ANC) national policy conference in Gauteng next week should remain loyal to principle and continuity, but also respond to changing circumstances, President Thabo Mbeki said on Friday. The four-day conference, which starts on Wednesday, will assess the party’s major policy positions.
The Democratic Alliance accused the Nokeng tsa Taemane municipality on Friday of hiding the truth by denying it faced collapse and needed R20-million from Gauteng province to survive. Municipal manager Mpho Mogale admitted the municipality had a cash-flow problem, and said plans were already in place to deal with it.
Zwelinzima Vavi does not seem to run out of hyperbole to illustrate what is wrong with the government’s economic policies. "It is like a doctor saying an operation has been successful when the patient is dead," he said to great laughter when addressing a youth rally in Mangaung in the Free State last Saturday.
The continued threat of sanctions against Sudan will only hamper progress towards deploying a hybrid African Union-United Nations peacekeeping force to Darfur, the government said on Thursday. Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Aziz Pahad said that sanction threats against Khartoum were ”surprising” and unhelpful.
The African National Congress (ANC) was the party demonstrating the most positive growth trend going into the 2009 national elections, the South African Institute of Race Relations said on Wednesday. It is ”the ANC and not the Democratic Alliance that is attracting growing popular support”, spokesperson Frans Cronje said at the launch of a report.
While holding elections in Côte d’Ivoire is a priority, this should not be done at the expense of peace in the country, President Thabo Mbeki said on Wednesday. Briefing the media following discussions with the Ivorian prime minister, Mbeki said the unification and disarmament process currently under way in the West African country was the main priority.
A man has been arrested and is being questioned by police after causing a disturbance in the public gallery of the National Assembly on Wednesday afternoon. Shortly after proceedings began, the man began shouting at bemused MPs sitting below. Deputy Speaker Gwen Mahlangu, who was in the chair at the time, repeatedly told the man to stop.