South Africa's stocks and currency reeled on the news that the architect of the country's economic success was resigning, but recovered somewhat after Finance Minister Trevor Manuel said he would serve in a new government.
A brief statement from the office of South African President Thabo Mbeki - who was forced to resign over the weekend amid an internal African National Congress power struggle - listed 13 ministers and three deputies who had tendered their resignations from the 28-member Cabinet, among them Manuel.
Tuesday's statement did not clarify that six of those who resigned, including Manuel, had already told the governing African National Congress (ANC) that they were willing to serve a new government, expected to be in place by the end of the week.
That important context came within an hour, from Manuel's spokeswoman, Thoraya Pandy.
She said that Manuel and his respected deputy, Jabulani Moleketi, "want to make it clear that they are ready to serve the new administration in any capacity that the incoming president deems fit."
Moleketi is in charge of finances for the 2010 Soccer World Cup in South Africa.
"They are and will continue to do the work they are doing," ANC Secretary-General Gwede Mantashe told a hastily called news conference.
The Communist Party, of which Mantashe is also chairman, charged that "today's dramatic announcement by the presidency was a reckless attempt to provoke a sense of crisis locally and internationally and to attach the blame for this crisis" to the ANC's top decision-making body, which had forced Mbeki out.
The Communists and the Congress of South African Trade Unions are longtime key allies of the ANC and they had helped lead the charge against Mbeki.
Mbeki was forced to quit after a judge threw out a corruption case against his main rival within the ANC, Jacob Zuma. Zuma's path to the presidency seems clear, but he must wait until elections next year.
The Johannesburg Stock Exchange's all-share index dropped 4.5 percent after the announcement of Manuel's departure on Tuesday. Stocks recovered somewhat but still were down 3.75 percent at the end of trading.
The rand, which dropped more than 0.20 rand to 8.20 against the dollar, was at 8.18 rand at the end of the day.
Mbeki's resignation becomes effective today, when the ANC says its legislators will vote for the party's deputy president, the moderate and conciliatory Kgalema Motlanthe, to become interim president.
Motlanthe would be the caretaker until elections that must be held in April and that are sure to be won by the ANC, propelling ANC leader Zuma to the national presidency.
The pitch is a classic: A young celebrity with no climbing experience spends a year in hard training and scales Mount Everest, succeeding against some — if not all — odds. French YouTuber Ines Benazzouz, known as Inoxtag, brought the story to life with a two-hour-plus documentary about his year preparing for the ultimate challenge. The film, titled Kaizen, proved a smash hit on its release last weekend. Young fans queued around the block to get into a preview screening in Paris, with Inoxtag’s management on Monday saying the film had smashed the box office record for a special cinema
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
‘DISAPPEARED COMPLETELY’: The melting of thousands of glaciers is a major threat to people in the landlocked region that already suffers from a water shortage Near a wooden hut high up in the Kyrgyz mountains, scientist Gulbara Omorova walked to a pile of gray rocks, reminiscing how the same spot was a glacier just a few years ago. At an altitude of 4,000m, the 35-year-old researcher is surrounded by the giant peaks of the towering Tian Shan range that also stretches into China, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. The area is home to thousands of glaciers that are melting at an alarming rate in Central Asia, already hard-hit by climate change. A glaciologist, Omarova is recording that process — worried about the future. She hiked six hours to get to
The number of people in Japan aged 100 or older has hit a record high of more than 95,000, almost 90 percent of whom are women, government data showed yesterday. The figures further highlight the slow-burning demographic crisis gripping the world’s fourth-biggest economy as its population ages and shrinks. As of Sept. 1, Japan had 95,119 centenarians, up 2,980 year-on-year, with 83,958 of them women and 11,161 men, the Japanese Ministry of Health said in a statement. On Sunday, separate government data showed that the number of over-65s has hit a record high of 36.25 million, accounting for 29.3 percent of