The South African government has admitted it decided to bar the Dalai Lama from attending a peace conference with Nobel peace laureates to avoid undermining relations with China.
A Cabinet statement released late on Wednesday said that while South Africa had not acted on a specific demand from Beijing, it was not prepared to “jeopardize” ties nor allow itself to be used as a political platform in the run-up to the hosting of next year’s soccer World Cup.
“A choice was made in this particular case that our interests will be better served if we give priority to making sure that we don’t jeopardize our bilateral relations with China in this particular case,” government spokesman Themba Maseko said in the statement.
“The government position is that we do not want the sporting events in this country, particularly 2010 [World Cup] to be used as a platform to advance the various different causes around the world, because that diverts attention from the sporting events themselves,” he said.
The Cabinet statement also slammed South African Health Minister Barbara Hogan who has called on the government to apologize for the decision, saying there would be consequences and that it was “unfortunate that the minister chose to go to a public platform to attack a decision of government.”
Yesterday the Constitutional Court spoke out in support of Hogan, with Judge Kate O’Reagan saying she was disappointed with South Africa, which received such global praise during the fight against apartheid. She said the country seemed to have forgotten this.
“It is a matter of dismay that human rights does not seem to enter into the picture of some foreign affairs decisions that are made,” she told SABC public radio.
The conference, which was to have taken place today, has been scrapped in the wake of the row.
OPTIMISTIC: A Philippine Air Force spokeswoman said the military believed the crew were safe and were hopeful that they and the jet would be recovered A Philippine Air Force FA-50 jet and its two-person crew are missing after flying in support of ground forces fighting communist rebels in the southern Mindanao region, a military official said yesterday. Philippine Air Force spokeswoman Colonel Consuelo Castillo said the jet was flying “over land” on the way to its target area when it went missing during a “tactical night operation in support of our ground troops.” While she declined to provide mission specifics, Philippine Army spokesman Colonel Louie Dema-ala confirmed that the missing FA-50 was part of a squadron sent “to provide air support” to troops fighting communist rebels in
ECONOMIC DISTORTION? The US commerce secretary’s remarks echoed Elon Musk’s arguments that spending by the government does not create value for the economy US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick on Sunday said that government spending could be separated from GDP reports, in response to questions about whether the spending cuts pushed by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency could possibly cause an economic downturn. “You know that governments historically have messed with GDP,” Lutnick said on Fox News Channel’s Sunday Morning Futures. “They count government spending as part of GDP. So I’m going to separate those two and make it transparent.” Doing so could potentially complicate or distort a fundamental measure of the US economy’s health. Government spending is traditionally included in the GDP because
Two daughters of an Argentine mountaineer who died on an icy peak 40 years ago have retrieved his backpack from the spot — finding camera film inside that allowed them a glimpse of some of his final experiences. Guillermo Vieiro was 44 when he died in 1985 — as did his climbing partner — while descending Argentina’s Tupungato lava dome, one of the highest peaks in the Americas. Last year, his backpack was spotted on a slope by mountaineer Gabriela Cavallaro, who examined it and contacted Vieiro’s daughters Guadalupe, 40, and Azul, 44. Last month, the three set out with four other guides
Sri Lanka’s fragile economic recovery could be hampered by threatened trade union strikes over reduced benefits for government employees in this year’s budget, the IMF said yesterday. Sri Lankan President Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s maiden budget raised public sector salaries, but also made deep cuts to longstanding perks in a continuing effort to repair the island nation’s tattered finances. Sri Lanka’s main doctors’ union is considering a strike from today to protest against cuts to their allowances, while teachers are also considering stoppages. IMF senior mission chief for Sri Lanka Peter Breuer said the budget was the “last big push” for the country’s austerity
RSS