The Democratic Alliance has called for a halt to the Western Cape’s multimillion-rand film city project, claiming that wrong decisions were ”deliberately made”. However premier Ebrahim Rasool’s office says due process was followed, and that anyone unhappy with what happened can launch a court challenge.
The government is setting out to tackle the slow pace of land reform — one of the country’s most politically sensitive issues — by including it in the agriculture broad-based black economic empowerment framework. Patterns of land ownership have remained largely unchanged, said last year’s South African Human Rights Commission report on human rights violations in farming communities.
Young South African politicians are rebelling against the established leadership of their parties as they struggle to revive organisations that, in some cases, seem to be on their last legs after suffering serious setbacks in the last general election. And political youth groups have a patchy record when it comes to protecting their members’ interest. We take a closer look at some of the bigger players.
Dr Ziba Jiyane was elected national chairperson of the Inkatha Freedom Party at its annual general conference last week. He was nominated from the floor and comprehensively beat party president Mangosuthu Buthelezi’s choice, Lionel Mtshali, by about 600 votes. Jiyane returns to leadership after he left politics in 1997 because of ill-health. The M&G has a word with him.
As part of its year-long celebration of its 70th birthday, South African Airways is offering a 70% discount on all domestic fares for the month of September. Passengers wishing to take advantage of these discounted fares must book on August 2 or 3 for travelling between September 1 and 30.
Amazon.co.uk was on Thursday night criticised for refusing to stock a book that examines the links between United States President George Bush’s circle and rich Saudis. Major bookstores including Waterstone’s and WH Smith are carrying House of Bush, House of Saud, which was published in Britain on Thursday after becoming a bestseller in the US.
John Kerry entered the last phase of his long pursuit of the United States presidency on Thursday, directly challenging President George Bush’s image as a tough wartime leader and promising to ”fight a smarter, more effective war on terror”.
An independent forensic probe into one of the government’s skills development agencies has uncovered a sorry tale of financial mismanagement, corruption and nepotism. The M&G obtained a copy of the 100-page report this week. It makes serious allegations of corruption and nepotism against Gerald Leith, who resigned as chief executive in May last year.
New communication channels such as chat rooms, e-mail and SMS are helping language take on a new form, where emoticons (a graphic representation of emotions), acronyms and abbreviations are becoming more commonplace when we communicate. It has been referred to as "broken English" and, maybe more neutrally, as "digital literacy". Language is going to hell in a handbasket. Or is it?
It’s been a long drag from the early days of South African television. We got the goggle-box about 20 years later than other developed colonies mainly because of the firm resistance mounted by a long-standing minister of posts and telegraphs in the National Party government, Dr Albert Hertzog. He might have delayed television’s introduction but we didn’t waste too much time catching up.