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"Renova masters Africa", a Moscow headline shouted in November 2004. It was journalistic hyperbole, perhaps, but the progress of Viktor Vekselberg, the man behind the Russian investment group, has been remarkable. When Vekselberg visited South Africa in February 2004, he got to meet the president, among others. Eighteen months later he co-owned rights to strategic manganese reserves in the Kalahari. This is the story of how the government, through the Department of Minerals and Energy (DME), awarded prospecting rights to a consortium set to benefit both Vekselberg, one of Russia's infamous oligarchs, and Chancellor House, the company we reveal to...

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Callous wealthy nations are indifferent to the plight of the poor as they pursue selfish policies which enrich the few at the expense of the many, South African President Thabo Mbeki said on Tuesday. "These billions of poor people are increasingly becoming impatient because every year they hear us adopt declaration after declaration and yet nothing practical is done to assuage the hunger pains that keep them awake at night," he told the United Nations General Assembly. At the Millennium Summit in September 2000, world leaders at the United Nations agreed a series of goals to...

HAVANA (Reuters) - Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir will attend a United Nations meeting on Darfur, opening the way for further talks despite his rejection of U.N. peacekeeping troops, South Africa said on Sunday. Bashir would "interact" with the U.N. Security Council over the issue and attend a summit of the African Union's peace and security council, said South African President Thabo Mbeki after talks with Bashir and U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan. "President Bashir wasn't going to go to New York but we discussed matters with him and he agreed that he would go to New York so that he...

JOHANNESBURG, Sept. 5 — Vladimir V. Putin, the Russian president, arrived in South Africa today for a two-day state visit, the first ever for a Kremlin leader, thus reuniting two old ideological soul mates under a new banner: making money. Hours after landing in Cape Town and meeting with President Thabo Mbeki, Mr. Putin told a news conference that Russia plans multibillion dollar investments in South Africa’s economy, he signed a business cooperation agreement and announced a deal to extend sales of nuclear fuel and technology to South Africa’s nascent nuclear power industry. ... The deal-making decisively overshadowed the historic...

A South African Aids campaigner has called on world leaders to speak out against the government of Thabo Mbeki, which he claims is responsible for the continuing but unnecessary devastation wreaked in his country by Aids. Eight hundred people die from Aids in South Africa every day, said Mark Heywood, of the Aids Law Project at the University of the Witwatersrand and the Treatment Action Campaign (Tac). "We're treating only 17% of people with Aids. What is happening in South Africa is a human rights violation that needs leadership from outside of South Africa to address the crisis being created...

PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe, who is coming under growing pressure to resolve the current crisis or quit, is expected to meet United Nations (UN) secretary-general Kofi Annan and South African President Thabo Mbeki in the Gambia in a fortnight. Diplomatic sources said yesterday a meeting has already been organised for the three leaders in Banjul on the sidelines of the African Union (AU) summit from June 25-July 2. Heads of state usually meet during the last two days of the summit. "The three leaders are expected to meet in Banjul, the Gambia, to discuss the Zimbabwe situation and map the way...

President Mugabe, under heavy local and international pressure to step down, has called for a constitutional amendment that will allow an interim President to be appointed by his Zanu PF party and pave the way for fresh elections for a new government. Official sources said this was the message that had been communicated to President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa, who is seen as a key player in delicate manoeuvres towards a transition from a dictatorship to democratic rule in Zimbabwe. It is understood that Mugabe wants his hand picked successor Joice Mujuru, to be the interim President, although this...

Bolivian president-elect Evo Morales, the South American country’s first indigenous leader, visited South Africa last week seeking advice on racial reconciliation and solidarity with his plans to place his country’s vast gas reserves under public ownership and nationalize social services.Evo Morales, Bolivia’s socialist president-elect, ended a global tour this week, returning to South America after visiting Venezuela, China, and Europe, and stopping in South Africa where he discussed economic and political transformation and post-conflict reconciliation. Morales, who will become Bolivia’s first indigenous president after winning a landslide victory on 18 December, left South Africa disappointed only that he had not...

Bushmen accuse Mbeki of treating them as 'unpure bastards' By Christopher Munnion in Johannesburg (Filed: 07/10/2005) The ancient Khoi-San people, commonly known as the Bushmen, have accused South Africa's government of implying that they are not African at all but mixed race "bastards". Chief Elwin White said the refusal by President Thabo Mbeki's government to grant his 5,000-strong community official status as the country's earliest inhabitants was insulting. He said the government treated them as "highly-stressed coloureds [mixed race people] who are without a sense of belonging, with any creative spirit, confused, anxious and mostly drunk". "The government officially and...

When it comes to twisting the arm of Zimbabwe strongman Robert Mugabe, there's probably only one person with the muscle to do it: South African President Thabo Mbeki. And twist he must, for Mr. Mugabe is running his country into the ground. Triple-digit inflation, a jobless rate of over 70 percent, severe hunger and fuel problems, political oppression, and a cruel urban relocation scheme have created a human rights disaster. Mr. Mbeki has considerable leverage with his neighbor. South Africa is Zimbabwe's largest trading partner, and the two leaders share a bond in having thrown off white rule, but Mbeki...

JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA – After standing by their man for years, a growing number of Africans are pushing Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe to change his ways. The shift in attitude, if it lasts, could mark a new period in Zimbabwe's ongoing crisis - one that tilts the situation toward resolution, thus removing a big blot on Africa's global reputation and helping free Zimbabweans from authoritarianism, soaring inflation, increasing poverty, and hunger. • Zimbabwe has asked regional powerhouse South Africa for a loan of up to $1 billion for fuel, food, and other scarce essentials, and to help prevent it from...

LONDON (Reuters) - United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan said on Thursday African leaders must speak out against what he called the wrong policies of any governments on the continent. Annan told the Financial Times in an interview it was vital for African countries to break their silence to protect the continent's credibility in the eyes of the world. "What is important -- and what is lacking on the continent -- is (a willingness) to comment on wrong policies in a neighboring country," he said before attending a summit of the Group of Eight (G8) top industrialized nations in Scotland. Annan...

It's G-8 time again — which means that President Bush is about to face concerted pressure... to see things their way on a host of issues. Not least of these is the question of financial aid to Africa — an issue buoyed by the recent publicity over the politically charged "Live 8" worldwide rock concerts (modestly praised by one performer as "the greatest thing that's ever been in the entire history of the world"), designed to "raise awareness" about Africa's desperate plight. Actually, it's not as if the G-8 leaders are unaware of the intense poverty and despair that has...

Washington - US President George W Bush on Thursday accused Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe of "destroying" his country and urged countries in the region, especially South Africa, to pressure him to change. "Next door to you is a person that is destroying a country because of bad policy, and it's not right. "And the nations in the neighbourhood must be strong," Bush told reporters ahead of next week's G8 summit in Scotland. Asked whether he was disappointed that President Thabo Mbeki has avoided publicly criticising Mugabe, Bush said: "I'm disappointed in Mugabe." "The world needs to speak very clearly...

South Africa in succession crisis as President Mbeki sacks deputy By Christopher Munnion in Johannesburg (Filed: 15/06/2005) President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa provoked a full-blown succession crisis yesterday by sacking his deputy over links to a corruption scandal. Mr Mbeki announced that he was dismissing Jacob Zuma, the man he had groomed to be the country's leader after he steps down in 2009, "in the best interests of our young democratic system". Mr Zuma's enforced departure followed last week's sentencing of a financial adviser and business partner, Schabir Shaik, to 15 years in prison. Sacked deputy Jacob Zuma: ‘...

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - With a long-simmering political corruption scandal at a boil, all eyes are on President Thabo Mbeki as he weighs how to respond to a court ruling that some experts say is an important test of South Africa's 11-year-old democracy. Mbeki is under pressure to act after a judge asserted that Deputy President Jacob Zuma had a "generally corrupt relationship" with a Durban businessman recently convicted of graft. The question is: Will Mbeki - who appointed Zuma - fire him to demonstrate South Africa's intolerance for impropriety and its commitment to the type of good governance that...

PRESIDENTIAL NEWS OF THE DAY: The President and First Lady are spending the weekend at their Crawford ranch. Undoubtedly Barney and Beezie are with them, but no new photos have turned up on Yahoo News Photos. (Sigh.) British Prime Minister Tony Blair will be visiting the President at the White House on Tuesday. The meeting is intended to be preparatory to the G8 Summit to be held in Scotland next month. They are expected to talk about aid to Africa, as well as the status of things in Afghanistan and Iraq. THE WEEK AHEAD: From White House Press Secretary Scott...

CAPE TOWN (Reuters) - The United States is willing to look for ways to fund a "Marshall Plan" for Africa even if it opposes Britain's plan for a new lending facility, South African President Thabo Mbeki said on Friday. Mbeki, fresh from meeting President Bush in Washington this week, told the World Economic Forum (WEF) Africa summit in Cape Town the U.S. leader was willing to help Africa, and Bush hoped commitments would be made at the G8 summit. "The U.S. says, we don't agree on the IFF (British-proposed International Financial Facility), but what we agree to is to generate...

ANC leader tainted by trial By Christopher Munnion in Johannesburg (Filed: 03/06/2005) South Africa's establishment was thrown into disarray yesterday after Jacob Zuma, an ANC leader tipped to succeed President Thabo Mbeki, was implicated in the corruption trial of a flamboyant businessman. A close friend and financial adviser to Mr Zuma was found guilty in Durban High Court of soliciting bribes from a French company to pay the deputy president to help win a contract for business with the South African navy. Judge Hilary Squires said he found "convincing and overwhelming evidence of a corrupt relationship" between the convicted man,...

Mbeki lambasts Brown for 'imperial nostalgia' By David Blair in Johannesburg (Filed: 30/05/2005) President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa rebuked Gordon Brown yesterday, accusing the "presumed successor to Tony Blair" of promoting nostalgia for British imperialism and joining in a "discourse" that "demonises" blacks. Mr Brown is leading the Government's efforts to help Africa during Britain's presidency of the G8 group of rich countries. But any credit this might have earned seems, in Mr Mbeki's mind, to have been dashed by remarks the Chancellor made during his tour of Africa in January. While in Tanzania, Mr Brown said the "days...