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http://ift.tt/2qn3aml Labour Party Shadow Brexit Secretary Keir Starmer (3R) poses with Labour candidate for Bridgend Madeleine Moon (4R), Labour candidate for Neath Christina Rees (R) and First Minister of Wales Carwyn Jones (2R) and supporters during a general election campaign event in Bridgend, south Wales, on May 15, 2017. Britain goes to the polls on June 8 to elect a new parliament in a general election. / AFP PHOTO / Geoff CADDICK Britain’s opposition Labour Party pledged to raise taxes on the well-off, renationalise key industries and end austerity in its manifesto on Tuesday, presenting voters with their starkest choice in decades in next month’s election. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn called the programme “radical and responsible”, saying the country had been run “for the rich, the elite and the vested interests” in seven years of Conservative government. “It will change our country,” he will say in his speech at the presentation of the manifesto in Bradford in northwest...

http://ift.tt/2qiAhHX (FILES) This file photo taken on March 17, 2017 shows South African chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng leading a session of the Constitutional Court in Johannesburg. The South African Constitutional Court will rule on May 15, 2017 on whether a secret ballot in a motion of no confidence brought against President Jacob Zuma will be allowed. / AFP PHOTO / MARCO LONGARI South Africa’s highest court was to decide Monday whether lawmakers can cast secret ballots in a no-confidence vote in President Jacob Zuma who is facing growing criticism within the ruling ANC. Several hundred protesters marched to the Constitutional Court in Johannesburg in the latest demonstrations against Zuma, who has been implicated in a series of corruption scandals. Opposition parties have lobbied for a secret ballot and called for African National Congress (ANC) lawmakers to “vote with their conscience”. The ANC holds a large majority in parliament and Zuma has survived similar votes in...

http://ift.tt/eA8V8J A former Chief of Staff to the governor of Oyo State and Visiting Professor of Political Science at Igbinedion University, Okada, Edo State, Adeolu Akande, has advocated local government autonomy as the panacea to the problem of local government administration in the country. Akande, who was a guest on a television programme monitored in Ibadan, Oyo State capital at the weekend, said local government in the country has failed to achieve the objective of grassroots development because of three factors. He listed the factors as lack of autonomy, lack of direct financial allocation from the federation account and the failure to elect local government councils, explaining that the three factors boil down to the issue of local government autonomy. “Local government councils will be accountable to their people if they are elected. Caretaker committees are only accountable to their appointing autorities,” he said, explaining that it is when a government is accountable...