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Tuesday, June 14, 2005File:JacobZuma.jpg
Today at about 1600 UTC/GMT, South African President Thabo Mbeki announced in a special session of parliament that he has taken action he feels is necessary, that is to “release [his deputy president], Jacob Zuma, from his responsibilities as deputy president of the republic and member of the cabinet”.
Zuma was implicated in corruption arising from his relationship with his former financial adviser, Schabir Shaik, who was convicted of corruption and fraud earlier this month. Shaik was found guilty by Durban High Court of two counts of corruption and one of fraud and was sentenced to 15 years imprisonment.
The President has called this one of his toughest decisions. Opposition leader of the Democratic Alliance immediately praised the president for holding “principle over politics”, and, while deeply saddened, former president Nelson Mandela supported Mbeki’s decision. Jacob Zuma was the favourite of the ruling African National Congress party to succeed Thabo Mbeki as president.
Following this ordeal, the government of South Africa has reaffirmed its dedication to the reduction and eventual elimination of corruption in all areas of politics.
UPDATE (July 7)
The African National Congress held a meeting of it’s National General Council over the weekend of 2-3 July. Zuma attracted a lot of favourable attention, mostly from people who wished to defeat policy initiatives that included relaxing some of the legal constraints on employers. He was reinstated as ANC deputy president and, in a first for the party, granted a salary (details not revealed). It now appears that Jacob Zuma’s political future is closely tied to that of the “left wing” of the ANC.
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The time is 17:00 (UTC) on May 21st, 2006, and this is Audio Wikinews News Briefs.
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Monday, May 24, 2010
A state of emergency has been declared in Kingston, the capital of Jamaica, after gunmen besieged and fired at police stations, injuring at least two police officers and a civilian, killing another man. Rioters have erected barricades in the city and one police station was set on fire when it was abandoned after officers ran out of ammunition.
The violence comes after the Jamaican authorities announced that they would extradite Christopher Dudus Coke, an alleged drug lord, to the United States on drugs and firearms charges. However Coke is seen by members of the impoverished Tivoli Gardens neighbourhood as a “godfather” like figure, who fulfils roles that the government does not, and his supporters have vowed to protect him, one demonstrator stating “we are willing to die for Dudus”.
The Jamaican police accuse the alliance of gunmen from communities across the island state of a desire to “launch coordinated attacks on the security forces” and urged citizens to evacuate the Tivoli Gardens and Denham Town areas of the city.
Jamaican Prime Minister Bruce Golding called the attacks “a calculated assault on the authority of the state” and promised that “[t]he criminal element who have placed the society under siege will not be allowed to triumph”.
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Thursday, August 16, 2007
The name Robert Cailliau may not ring a bell to the general public, but his invention is the reason why you are reading this: Dr. Cailliau together with his colleague Sir Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web, making the internet accessible so it could grow from an academic tool to a mass communication medium. Last January Dr. Cailliau retired from CERN, the European particle physics lab where the WWW emerged.
Wikinews offered the engineer a virtual beer from his native country Belgium, and conducted an e-mail interview with him (which started about three weeks ago) about the history and the future of the web and his life and work.
Wikinews: At the start of this interview, we would like to offer you a fresh pint on a terrace, but since this is an e-mail interview, we will limit ourselves to a virtual beer, which you can enjoy here.
Robert Cailliau: Yes, I myself once (at the 2nd international WWW Conference, Chicago) said that there is no such thing as a virtual beer: people will still want to sit together. Anyway, here we go.
