The African National Congress’s (ANC) national working committee (NWC) will discuss its youth league’s recent national congress in Bloemfontein next week, spokesperson Jesse Duarte said on Wednesday. ”We will speak at the NWC meeting on Monday,” Duarte said.
United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Wednesday it was time to remove former South African president Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress (ANC) from a US blacklist drawn up during the apartheid era. ”I really do hope that we can remove these restrictions on the ANC,” Rice told a Senate committee.
Gerhard Zandberg’s African record-breaking performance in the 100m backstroke, plus speedy times set by Cameron van der Burgh and Jessica Pengelly, gave the South African team much to cheer about on the opening morning of the Fina World Short-Course Swimming Championships on Thursday.
The change of African National Congress (ANC) leadership should not cause anxiety about stability in the country, as the government would continue to implement its policies, Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka said on Tuesday. ”The resolutions taken at the ANC conference late last year have guaranteed continuity,” she said.
Talk of China’s interest in a stake in BHP Billiton has sent the resources index northward and, in turn, helped the JSE advance further by midday on Wednesday. Dow Jones newswires said that the <i>Australian</i> reported in its Wednesday edition China is in the early stages of planning to buy a stake in miner BHP Billiton.
France’s interior minister faulted the Chinese organisers of the Olympic torch relay for its chaotic run through Paris, saying in an interview on Wednesday that French police merely provided technical support. "The Olympic rule is that the organising country is always responsible for preserving the flame," Interior Minister Michele Alliot-Marie said.
Thousands of protesters were expected to line the route of the latest leg of the Olympic torch’s ”Journey of Harmony” on Wednesday as officials in San Francisco braced themselves for a repetition of the tumultuous scenes in Paris and London. A broad coalition of protest groups has converged on the city.
Africa will be well-placed to weather a global economic downturn if it uses high oil and commodities prices to diversify its economies, one of the continent’s most successful businessmen said in an interview. Nigerian tycoon Aliko Dangote said the world’s poorest continent could benefit while developed nations suffered an economic slowdown.
Authorities have now removed 401 children from a remote ranch in west Texas belonging to a breakaway Mormon sect linked to jailed polygamist leader Warren Jeffs, Texas authorities said on Monday. Patrick Crimmins, a spokesperson for the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, said 401 children have been taken from the compound.
The national congress of the African National Congress Youth League was indefinitely postponed on Monday evening after being unable to finish its work or confirm the results of its leadership election. Electoral commission member Malusi Gigaba told journalists in Bloemfontein that the League would ask the ANC to help solve its differences.