SOUTH AFRICA
JOHANNESBURG – South Africa's acting chief prosecutor announces that he will investigate the national police commissioner Jackie Selebi amid reports of a warrant being issued for his arrest for links to organised crime. Selebi is a powerful behind-the-scenes figure in the ruling African National Congress (ANC) who could emerge as a kingmaker as the fractured party prepares to elect a new leader at a party conference in December.
JOHANNESBURG – Schabir Shaik, former financial adviser to controversial politician Jacob Zuma, loses his final appeal against fraud and corruption charges and a 15-year prison sentence. The Constitutional Court says it would not be in the interests of justice to grant an appeal, a decision that could clear the way for presidential hopeful Zuma to be recharged in connection with the case. In 2005, Shaik was found guilty of trying to solicit a R500 000 a year bribe for Zuma from French arms company Thint in return for protecting it from an investigation into a massive arms deal arranged by South Africa in the late 1990s.
AFRICA
KINSHASA – Ten African Union (AU) soldiers are killed and 50 are reported missing after armed men launch an assault on an AU base in Darfur, the worst attack on AU troops since they deployed in Sudan's violent west in 2004. Sudan's army and Darfur rebel movements initially blamed each other for the attack on the Haskanita base in south-eastern Darfur. But one rebel source says the attack was carried out by breakaway rebel forces that want a seat at peace talks due to begin on October 27 in Libya.
NAIROBI – Kenya's President, Mwai Kibaki, rejects a Parliamentary Bill seeking to limit probes into major corruption cases, following a warning from Western governments that it would mark a big step backwards in the fight against graft. Mainly opposition MPs recently defeated a government-backed amendment to anticorruption laws that would have given the Kenya Anticorruption Commission (KACC) power to investigate crimes before May 2003.
Current legislation stops the KACC pursuing cases dating from the 24-year rule of President Daniel arap Moi, when endemic graft nearly brought East Africa's biggest economy to its knees.
DAKAR – Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade says he will travel to Zimbabwe this month to recommend multilateral mediation by African Heads of State to try to solve the crisis in the Southern African country. Wade wants to discuss with Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe how African leaders, including himself and South African President Thabo Mbeki, could mediate between Mugabe and his opponents, both domestic and international. Wade, who like Mugabe is in his 80s, has complained that there is no official African Union (AU) position on Zimbabwe and insists that mediation should not be left to Mbeki alone. A grouping of Southern African nations has mandated Mbeki to secure a deal on constitutional reform between Mugabe and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change ahead of March 2008 presidential and parliamentary polls.
WORLD
BERLIN – German Chancellor Angela Merkel announces that she is to visit three African countries, including South Africa, Ethiopia and Liberia. On her first trip to sub-Saharan Africa as chancellor, she is expected to press South African President Thabo Mbeki to take a tougher line with Zimbabwe, which is in the grip of an economic crisis that critics blame on the government. Critics accuse President Robert Mugabe of human rights abuses and of presiding over the collapse of Zimbabwe's economy, which has the world's highest inflation rate of about 6 000% and unemployment levels of about 80%. "The chancellor will talk about this with Mbeki and urge him to exercise his influence on Zimbabwe to change the developments of the last few years," says a German government official.
JOHANNESBURG – South Africa's acting chief prosecutor announces that he will investigate the national police commissioner Jackie Selebi amid reports of a warrant being issued for his arrest for links to organised crime. Selebi is a powerful behind-the-scenes figure in the ruling African National Congress (ANC) who could emerge as a kingmaker as the fractured party prepares to elect a new leader at a party conference in December.
JOHANNESBURG – Schabir Shaik, former financial adviser to controversial politician Jacob Zuma, loses his final appeal against fraud and corruption charges and a 15-year prison sentence. The Constitutional Court says it would not be in the interests of justice to grant an appeal, a decision that could clear the way for presidential hopeful Zuma to be recharged in connection with the case. In 2005, Shaik was found guilty of trying to solicit a R500 000 a year bribe for Zuma from French arms company Thint in return for protecting it from an investigation into a massive arms deal arranged by South Africa in the late 1990s.
AFRICA
KINSHASA – Ten African Union (AU) soldiers are killed and 50 are reported missing after armed men launch an assault on an AU base in Darfur, the worst attack on AU troops since they deployed in Sudan's violent west in 2004. Sudan's army and Darfur rebel movements initially blamed each other for the attack on the Haskanita base in south-eastern Darfur. But one rebel source says the attack was carried out by breakaway rebel forces that want a seat at peace talks due to begin on October 27 in Libya.
NAIROBI – Kenya's President, Mwai Kibaki, rejects a Parliamentary Bill seeking to limit probes into major corruption cases, following a warning from Western governments that it would mark a big step backwards in the fight against graft. Mainly opposition MPs recently defeated a government-backed amendment to anticorruption laws that would have given the Kenya Anticorruption Commission (KACC) power to investigate crimes before May 2003.
Current legislation stops the KACC pursuing cases dating from the 24-year rule of President Daniel arap Moi, when endemic graft nearly brought East Africa's biggest economy to its knees.
DAKAR – Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade says he will travel to Zimbabwe this month to recommend multilateral mediation by African Heads of State to try to solve the crisis in the Southern African country. Wade wants to discuss with Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe how African leaders, including himself and South African President Thabo Mbeki, could mediate between Mugabe and his opponents, both domestic and international. Wade, who like Mugabe is in his 80s, has complained that there is no official African Union (AU) position on Zimbabwe and insists that mediation should not be left to Mbeki alone. A grouping of Southern African nations has mandated Mbeki to secure a deal on constitutional reform between Mugabe and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change ahead of March 2008 presidential and parliamentary polls.
WORLD
BERLIN – German Chancellor Angela Merkel announces that she is to visit three African countries, including South Africa, Ethiopia and Liberia. On her first trip to sub-Saharan Africa as chancellor, she is expected to press South African President Thabo Mbeki to take a tougher line with Zimbabwe, which is in the grip of an economic crisis that critics blame on the government. Critics accuse President Robert Mugabe of human rights abuses and of presiding over the collapse of Zimbabwe's economy, which has the world's highest inflation rate of about 6 000% and unemployment levels of about 80%. "The chancellor will talk about this with Mbeki and urge him to exercise his influence on Zimbabwe to change the developments of the last few years," says a German government official.
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