q Secretary-General Kofi Annan will travel to Paris to meet political and business leaders,UN spokesman office announced Friday.
Annan is headed to Paris where he will meet early next week with senior French officials and then address some 200 business leaders on their contribution to meeting global socioeconomic development targets, it said.
According to the office, the Secretary-General will begin his two-day trip on Monday with official meetings with President Chirac and Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy.
Annan will also have a working lunch with the French President and British Prime Minister Tony Blair, it noted, adding he is expected to return on Thursday to UN headquarters in New York.
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A popular groundswell is building behind Jacob Zuma, the former South African deputy president who was recently dismissed amid corruption allegations.
Leftwing supporters of Mr Zuma on Tuesday launched a fund to pay his legal and other costs when he goes on trial to face two counts of corruption. The launch came a day after Cosatu, South Africa’s main trade unions federation and the ruling African National Congress’s partner in government, called on president Thabo Mbeki to reinstate his former deputy and prevent what it called a “political trial”.
The backlash represents the biggest internal political challenge yet to Mr
South Africa's powerful trade union federation COSATU has urged President Thabo Mbeki to reinstate his former deputy Jacob Zuma, saying a corruption case against him should stop because it is politically motivated.
COSATU is officially an ally of the ruling African National Congress in government, and its call marked widening divisions between Mbeki and the labour movement whose support has helped the ANC hold on to power in the 11 years since apartheid ended.
Mbeki fired Zuma in June after a court convicted an adviser of bribing him. Zuma is to be tried for corruption in October.
The Congress of South African Trade
As an ancient capital and the political and cultural center of modern China, Beijing is viewed as a charming destination for tourists.
In 2004 alone, the metropolis received over 3 million overseas and 100 million domestic tourists, creating a total income value of 130 billion yuan, or over 16 billion US dollars for the local economy.
As the 2008 summer Olympics are approaching, Vice director of the Beijing Tourism Bureau Xiong Yumei said Beijing's tourism industry is now facing an unprecedented opportunity.
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Pakistan's Information Minister Sheikh Rashid today applied for the special permit to travel by the Muzaffarabad-Srinagar bus for a visit to Jammu and Kashmir where he planned to meet Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed and hardline Hurriyat leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani.
"I have applied today, sought a seat in the June 15 bus. I want to go as a common citizen and common Kashmiri," Rashid told Geo TV here.
He said it would be a private visit being undertaken at the invitation of JKLF leader Yasin Malik, who is currently touring Pakistan along with moderate Hurriyat leaders, including Mirwaiz Umar Farooq.
If
WEST AFRICA: Minding the information and communication gap
DAKAR, 22 November (IRIN) - As world leaders call for the benefits of new technologies to be shared more evenly around the globe, the reality on the ground in West Africa is a stark reminder of just how much work remains to be done.
Gathered together at the World Summit on the Information Society in Tunis last week, international leaders such as UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and African Union President Olusegun Obasanjo argued for a bridging of the so-called digital divide between regions rural and urban, rich and poor.
"There is a tremendous yearning,
