African National Congress (ANC) leader Jacob Zuma was elected president of South Africa by parliament on Wednesday and set boosting the economy and creating jobs as his immediate priorities.
Zuma, jailed for 10 years under apartheid before going into exile, is the nation’s fourth head of state since the end of white rule in 1994.
An eight-year corruption case nearly ruined him, but graft charges against him were dropped shortly before the election on April 22, which his ruling party won handsomely.
Aside from fighting poverty, crime and AIDS, Zuma faces the task of guiding Africa’s biggest economy, which may already be in recession, through the global financial crisis.
Zuma moved quickly to reassure foreign investors who will be watching to see if the charismatic former guerrilla steers the economy to the left despite his assurances of policy continuity.
He also sought to comfort trade union allies who helped him become president and may want payback in the form of more government spending.
“We must move quickly to implement the framework agreed by the government, business and labor to protect jobs and boost the economy,” Zuma said.
Zuma will be inaugurated tomorrow and will name a Cabinet on Sunday. The 67-year-old was deputy president for six years before being sacked by his predecessor, former president Thabo Mbeki, in 2005.
The new government is expected to keep conservative monetary and fiscal policies to cushion the impact of the global crisis.
The fate of respected Finance Minister Trevor Manuel will be closely monitored by the markets, who view him highly and have praised his management of the economy.
Manuel stood alongside Zuma as they were sworn in as members of parliament.
A source familiar with the issue said the long-serving finance minister may be chosen as a deputy president, tasked with heading a planning commission from within the presidency.
Chinese authorities said they began live-fire exercises in the Gulf of Tonkin on Monday, only days after Vietnam announced a new line marking what it considers its territory in the body of water between the nations. The Chinese Maritime Safety Administration said the exercises would be focused on the Beibu Gulf area, closer to the Chinese side of the Gulf of Tonkin, and would run until tomorrow evening. It gave no further details, but the drills follow an announcement last week by Vietnam establishing a baseline used to calculate the width of its territorial waters in the Gulf of Tonkin. State-run Vietnam News
When Shanghai-based designer Guo Qingshan posted a vacation photo on Valentine’s Day and captioned it “Puppy Mountain,” it became a sensation in China and even created a tourist destination. Guo had gone on a hike while visiting his hometown of Yichang in central China’s Hubei Province late last month. When reviewing the photographs, he saw something he had not noticed before: A mountain shaped like a dog’s head rested on the ground next to the Yangtze River, its snout perched at the water’s edge. “It was so magical and cute. I was so excited and happy when I discovered it,” Guo said.
Four decades after they were forced apart, US-raised Adamary Garcia and her birth mother on Saturday fell into each other’s arms at the airport in Santiago, Chile. Without speaking, they embraced tearfully: A rare reunification for one the thousands of Chileans taken from their mothers as babies and given up for adoption abroad. “The worst is over,” Edita Bizama, 64, said as she beheld her daughter for the first time since her birth 41 years ago. Garcia had flown to Santiago with four other women born in Chile and adopted in the US. Reports have estimated there were 20,000 such cases from 1950 to
DEFENSE UPHEAVAL: Trump was also to remove the first woman to lead a military service, as well as the judge advocates general for the army, navy and air force US President Donald Trump on Friday fired the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force General C.Q. Brown, and pushed out five other admirals and generals in an unprecedented shake-up of US military leadership. Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social that he would nominate former lieutenant general Dan “Razin” Caine to succeed Brown, breaking with tradition by pulling someone out of retirement for the first time to become the top military officer. The president would also replace the head of the US Navy, a position held by Admiral Lisa Franchetti, the first woman to lead a military service,
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