The Commission of Inquiry into State Commission in Johannesburg is under way. Head of the Free State Human Settlements Department Tim Mokhesi has concluded his evidence.
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Live proceedings will be streamed below:
Central African Republic’s president Faustin-Archange Touadera said on Saturday he would stand for a second term in the December election, pressing on with preparations for a vote that the opposition wants delayed due to concerns over voter registrations.
The main opposition coalition is questioning the credibility of the election, after instability in the region and the coronavirus pandemic disrupted voter rolls and required parliament to tweak the electoral calendar.
Touadera made his candidacy announcement to a crowd of 6,000 supporters in a sports hall in the capital Bangui that had been repainted for the occasion in the blue and white colours of his party.
“The Central African people will no longer go backwards. The old political recipes which have led the country into misfortune are no longer accepted,” he said.
One challenger is deposed former president Francois Bozize, who was overthrown in a 2013 rebellion by a coalition of mainly Muslim rebels from the north, plunging the majority Christian nation into a violent civil war.
Touadera, who was prime minister under Bozize, has served as president since 2016. His first term has seen the precarious restoration of state institutions and the signing of a controversial agreement with armed groups in 2019, which has failed to bring lasting peace.
The violence has caused one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, displacing over 600,000 people within the country while a further 600,000 live as refugees in neighbouring Cameroon, Chad, and elsewhere, according to U.N. figures.
President Donald Trump on Saturday announced conservative appellate judge Amy Coney Barrett as his third US Supreme Court appointment, setting off a scramble in the Republican-led Senate to confirm her before Election Day in 5-1/2 weeks.
Barrett, 48, appeared at a ceremony in the White House Rose Garden with Trump as he made the announcement.
“Today it is my honor to nominate one of our nation’s most brilliant and gifted legal minds to the Supreme Court,” Trump said.
Turning to Barrett, Trump said that “you are very eminently qualified for the job.” She and her lawyer husband have seven children, two of whom were adopted from Haiti, and they joined her at the ceremony in the White House Rose Garden.
If confirmed to replace liberal icon Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died at age 87 on September 18, Barrett would become the fifth woman ever to serve on the top US judicial body and push its conservative majority to a commanding 6-3. With Trump’s fellow Republicans controlling the Senate, confirmation appears certain, though Democrats may try to make the process as difficult as possible.
“I love the United States and I love the United States Constitution,” Barrett said, adding that she was “deeply honored” in the confidence that Trump had shown in her.
Barrett praised Ginsburg, saying the late justice was “a woman of enormous talent and consequence.”
Barrett pledged to be a justice along the lines of the late Justice Antonin Scalia, a staunch conservative who was friends with Ginsburg. Barrett once served as a clerk for Scalia.
“His judicial philosophy is mine too: a judge must apply the law as written. Judges are not policy makers,” Barrett said.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell issued a statement Saturday praising the nomination.
“Judge Amy Coney Barrett is an exceptionally impressive jurist and an exceedingly well-qualified nominee to the Supreme Court of the United States,” McConnell said.
Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden repeated his call for the appointment to be made by the winner of the election on November 3.
“The Senate should not act on this vacancy until after the American people select their next president and the next Congress,” Biden said.
Barrett was appointed by Trump to the Chicago-based 7th US Circuit Court of Appeals in 2017 and is a favorite of religious conservatives, a key Trump voter bloc. Conservative activists have hailed Trump’s selection, which surfaced on Friday night, while liberals have voiced dismay.
Like Trump’s two other appointees, Neil Gorsuch in 2017 and Brett Kavanaugh in 2018, Barrett is young enough that she could serve for decades. Barrett is the youngest Supreme Court nominee since conservative Clarence Thomas was 43 in 1991.
“The stakes for our country are incredibly high, rulings that the Supreme Court will issue in the coming years will decide the survival of our Second Amendment (which guarantees the right to bear arms), our religious liberty, our public safety and so much more,” Trump said.
“I urge lawmakers and members of the media to refrain from personal or partisan attacks” on Barrett, Trump added.
China needs to further open its capital markets and financial industry to avoid being globally isolated，a senior foreign exchange regulator said on Saturday.
China will conform to international rules to promote further integration of its capital markets, and continue interest rate and exchange rate reforms in a steady and prudent manner, Lu Lei, deputy director of the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE), said during an industry forum in Shanghai.
“China should use a higher level of opening to counter the risks of blockade and containment，and actively embrace，and integrate into the global financial system,” Lu said.
Beijing is accelerating financial market deregulation as intensifying Sino-U.S tensions raise concerns about the risks that China decouples economically and technologically with the rest of the world.
To boost cross-border private equity investment，China is looking to revise rules for its private equity and overseas investment schemes, Lu said on Friday.
The Qualified Foreign Limited Partner, or QFLP, allows qualified foreign institutions to make private equity investments in China while the Qualified Domestic Limited Partnership, or QDLP, allows foreign fund managers with awarded quotas to raise money in China for overseas investments.
Lu also vowed to increase exchange rate flexibility to cushion against volatility in the economy and balance of international payments.
China on Friday moved to further ease foreign access to its capital markets, officially combining two major inbound investment schemes and broadening the scope for foreign institutional investment.
Forty-five years after founding his fashion group, Giorgio Armani came up with a new way of showing his latest catwalk creations on Saturday – a prime-time TV show.
The show was one of the highlights of Milan’s fashion week, which has hosted a mix of live and virtual catwalks for its first edition since coronavirus restrictions made the heady mix of glamour, celebrity and hype at such events more complicated.
The 86-year-old Armani, affectionately called “King Giorgio” in his native Italy, presented his “Timeless Thoughts” Spring/Summer 2021 show for both men and women using soft, pastel tones, floral prints and intricate embroideries.
The show, preceded by a short documentary about Armani’s career curated by the designer himself, was broadcast on Italian free-to-air La7, one of the country’s main channels, with the aim of opening up to a wider public.
While there was no traditional VIP front row to applaud the designs, Armani’s trademark clean, elegant style was on display: trouser suits, short jackets with round collars, silk and organza blouses in pale grey, beige, light blue and green, and shimmering evening wear.
“Out there hell has broken loose, I prefer to think that we can keep the hell outside,” Armani said of his sober designs as he spoke to reporters at a preview of the collection.
He said that travel restrictions made presenting men’s and women’s designs together more sensible, although it was too early to say whether he would follow that model again in the future.
“We have to anxiously wait to see what happens,” said the designer, who has already announced that he will present his next haute couture show in Milan rather than Paris.
Italy enforced one of the strictest and longest lockdowns, from early March. Now new infections are just under 2,000 a day, steadily rising again, but below levels seen in France, Spain and Britain.
Its fashion and textile industry, with a turnover of 95 billion euros ($98 billion) and 600,000 workers is the second most important nationwide, is reeling from a plunge in sales.
According to business lobby Confindustria, exports of women’s’ fashion fell by 24% in the first six months of the year.
Armani’s collection ended with a model in an evening robe sporting the face of a black cat on a sequined, silvery waistcoat, a tribute to Armani’s pet Angel, who died in July.
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