Ghana president 'to cut luxuries'

Source:BBC NEWS | Africa | Ghana president 'to cut luxuries'

Ghana's new President, John Atta Mills, has promised to cut wasteful government spending in his first State of the Nation speech.
The government needs to make drastic cuts to get by after it discovered that spending before last year's election had left the country "broke".
President Atta Mills said he would cut back on the presidential jet, wages and civil service training seminars.
But he did not mention a key election promise to reduce the price of fuel.
"What is called for is savings on our part to use those savings in the productive areas of the economy," said President Atta Mills.
He said Ghana was drastically in need of "austerity".
Last month a member of the new president's transitional team told reporters that Ghana was "broke".
The government of former President John Kufuor had exceeded its forecast budget deficit for 2008 by nearly seven times, Hanna Tetteh told Reuters news agency.

Source:Al Jazeera English - Americas - Guantanamo 'complies with law'

A US military report on conditions at the US prison facility in Guantanamo Bay in Cuba says the prison complies with the requirements of the Geneva conventions, according to US media.
However, the Pentagon report says detainees should be allowed to speak to one another and be able to engage in group activities, the New York Times said on Friday.
Barack Obama, the US president, has pledged to close Guantanamo Bay within a year.Obama had asked Robert Gates, the US defence secretary, to commission a review of the treatment of Guantanamo detainees by this weekend, giving him 30 days to carry out the review and ordering that Guantanamo detainees be treated in compliance with international law.
The Times quoted Pentagon officials as saying that the military team who conducted the review investigated abuse allegations made over the prison and concluded that the Pentagon was in compliance with the Geneva Conventions' requirements.
The review included some of the most contentious issues, including the forced feeding of hunger-striking detainees and allegations that many prisoners are suffering from mental ill health as a result of conditions in the centre, the paper said.The Pentagon is due to deliver the report to the US president this weekend and it will be discussed in public by Admiral Patrick Walsh, vice chief of naval operations who prepared the report, next week, reports say.
The US president has also ordered Gates and Eric Holder, the US attorney general, to carry out a wider review of the future of the detainees held at Guantanamo, who include five men suspected of involvement in the US September 11, 2001 attacks.
However, Amnesty International said on Friday that most of the 615 detainees being held at Bagram are Afghan nationals being without access to courts or legal counsel and some have been held for years.

Kwetu Tanzania huwa wanasema tu utekelezaji ndio unakuwa haupo. Mfano kuhusu Mashangingi nakumbuka Kikwete alisema kuwa atapunguza manunuzi ya magari ya kifahari lakini hadi leo hakuna kilichofanyika. End of last year ndio PM anasema wamekubaliana kupunguza hayo manunuzi ili wanunue matreka kwa ajili ya Kilimo lakini huo ni uongo tu.
Hakuna hata kiongozi mmoja yupo pale kwa ajili ya watanzania wapo kwa maslahi yao binafsi. Mambo mazuri au mabadiliko halisi yatapatikana pale upinzani wakweli utakapochukua nchi vinginevyo ni ndoto.