Striking teachers in the Central African Republic said on Wednesday they were ready to negotiate with government over salary arrears and end their protest.

Delegates at an international conference against racism cheered and whistled on Wednesday as they voted to expel non-blacks from the meeting, saying it was too traumatic to discuss slavery in front of them.

Alladji Billaj thought he was safe when he fled his native country of Liberia for Côte d'Ivoire a few years ago. But his sense of security was shattered when he was recently forced out of his home in the Ivorian city of Abidjan.

Government must brace itself for more strikes if privatisation is not scrapped, Congress of South African Trade Unions president Willie Madisha said on Wednesday. "If the government does not listen to us as workers and does not address our plight, we will go to the streets until it listens. We don't care how long it takes," he told protesters in Pretoria.

President Olusegun Obasanjo has taken the olive branch to the National Assembly in his determination to end a stand-off between the executive and legislature. But beyond the impeachment threat of the National Assembly are other roadblocks in his 2003 race, if the president plans to achieve his stated goal of winning another term.