David Beresford Another Country Some years ago, trying to get an interview with the Rain Queen, I was persuaded to have a lesser sangoma (male) throw the bones for me in a hill-side kraal near Duiwels Kloof, in the northern Transvaal. I was seated in a position from which I could look out the door […]
Julia Hartley-Brewer More than 500 years after Leonardo da Vinci sketched his design, a Briton has proved that the Renaissance genius was the inventor of the first working parachute. Adrian Nicholas, a 38-year-old skydiver from London, fulfilled his life’s ambition to prove the aerodynamics experts wrong when he used a parachute based on Da Vinci’s […]
Moses Isegawa’s first novel has drawn lavish praise. Soon to visit South Africa, he speaks to Brenda Atkinson In Abyssinian Chronicles (Picador), debut novelist Moses Isegawa has written an opus to which the usual superlatives apply: it is a rich and perfectly measured tale of contemporary Uganda, a story that grips with the ambiguous allure […]
THE Tanzanian government has stopped importing chloroquin because of the increased resistance of the malaria-causing parasites to the drug. Deputy Health Minister Tatu Ntimizi has said. Ntimizi told parliament at Dodoma in central Tanzania on Tuesday that government-owned medical stores were no longer mporting chloroquin anti-malarials. Official records show that Malaria is Tanzania’s leading killer […]
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PUBLIC Service & Administration Minister Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi said on Sunday that government is willing to negotiate employee benefits with public service unions but will not budge from its 6% salary increase across the board. “The 6% offer on the salary increase is final, but we are open to discussion on areas related to benefits.” Most […]
IN an attempt to spread its influence further into Southern Africa, the Development Bank of Southern Africa has signed a US$10m loan with Zambia’s Copperbelt Energy Corporation. This is the first loan to a private power company. The 12-year loan will finance the extension of the company’s electricity transmission and distribution infrastructure in the mineral […]
THE world’s largest diamond company, De Beers, has decided to follow a strategic review in marketing and planned acquisitions. It wants to boast its own gems and run more foreign mines. Hence the $175m hostile bid for Canadian miner, Winspear. Although De Beers controls up to 70% of the world trade in rough gems and […]
BELGIAN Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt arrived at Waterkloof air force base in Pretoria on Thursday morning for his first visit to South Africa. The Department of Foreign Affairs earlier said Verhofstadt would hold discussions with President Thabo Mbeki on the situation in central Africa and the Great Lakes region during his two-day visit. Verhofstadt was […]
FORMER National Party cabinet minister Abe Williams has been denied leave to appeal against his convictions on corruption and theft charges involving more than R500000. He was present during when his application was argued in the Cape High Court on Tuesday, but took ill during the lunch hour and was not in court for the […]