LyrArc Article Gist
Trevor Manuel, as head of the national planning commission, may have even more authority -as he oversees all economic policy on behalf of the President- than in his previous position as finance minister of South Africa. President Zuma knows that he is not a person fond of policy details and long reports, and he may be wisely creating this position in the President's office so that he could delegate this important work to Trevor Manuel. The head of the tax department, Mr Gordhan, becomes finance minister. Asked what his priorities would be, Zuma in his characterstic manner joked , " My rooibos tea, honey and lemon."

LyrArc Article Gist
The politicians in Japan are seen as aself-selecting elite, not just the LDP which has been the party in power for mostly all the post war years, but also the Democratic Party of Japan. Mr Ozawa the DPJ leader was from the LDP, and the new leader Hatoyama's grandfather was an LDP founding father. The LDP prime minister is Mr Aso whose grandfather was Shigeru Yoshida, a prime minister after the war. Mr Hatoyama and another DPJ leader are defectors from the LDP, and both have large family fortunes, as do many LDP leaders. Mr Hatoyama has abrother in the current cabinet. And LDP olitical families treat seats in the paliament the Diet, as inheritable sinecures. Actually half of the current cabinet of Mr Aso are offspring of former politicians. So the Economist is pessimistic about the prospects of real change and fresh ideas for Japan from this crowd of politicians. It sees the need for new ideas. The economy has seen asharp decline in exports. Companies like Toyota are seeing a drop in sales. Government debt is twice the annual output, larger than Italy's. Export led growth which was the basis of recovery since 2002 has crumbled. The demographics estimates show that Japan's working age population will fall fastest as its overall population drops significantly in coming decades. This makes the schemes of the LDP like sending back immigrants of Japanese descent to Brazil with no chance of return as a particularly nutty in the light of the demographics. Leaving change to Mr Hatoyama and Ozawa of the DPJ now makes the prospects of new ideas just as elusive as before. And the public is just as disillusioned, considering the very low ratings of Mr Aso and other politicians....