Even the most efficient student would have agonised over the assignment — a 30-page term paper on the social value of literary criticism. But Richard finished it in one evening, cutting and pasting paragraphs off the internet for an online company that sells papers to desperate United States college students.
South African Communist Party (SACP) leader Blade Nzimande criticised President Thabo Mbeki on Monday for ”personalising issues” instead of dealing with the real problems. In an interview with South African Broadcasting Corporation radio, Nzimande said the president’s remarks were causing unnecessary stress within the tripartite alliance.
United States intelligence officials believe that the Cuban leader, Fidel Castro, has terminal cancer and will not be returning to power, according to Time magazine. ”Certainly we have heard this, that this guy has terminal cancer,” one official said.
A North Korean nuclear test would constitute a ”provocative act” and Washington expects the United Nations Security Council to take immediate actions, the White House said early on Monday. ”US and South Korean intelligence detected a seismic event [on] Sunday at a suspected nuclear test site in North Korea,” said White House spokesperson Tony Snow.
President Thabo Mbeki has accused South African Communist Party general secretary Blade Nzimande of ”extraordinary arrogance”, it emerged on Sunday. It was this which had led him to ”openly despise” the African National Congress, Mbeki noted in his political overview to the ANC’s National Executive Committee meeting held over the weekend.
A crowd of protesters gathered in central Moscow on Sunday to express their anger at the assassination of the crusading journalist Anna Politkovskaya, who at the weekend became the 13th Russian journalist to be killed in a contract-style killing since President Vladimir Putin came to power in 2000.
Cape Town, the undisputed star of South Africa’s tourist industry, is flaunting its majestic mountains and white beaches in a bid to play a leading role in international movie-making. Hollywood may also have its hills and ocean surf, but the sheer cost of shooting in tinsel town means that producers on a tight budget are having to look further and wider to find their ideal location.
Few people pass through the simple metal gates of Yangon’s only synagogue, nestled between Indian paint shops and Muslim traders on a small street near the city centre. Those who do stop by and peer into the grand colonial-era blue and white building will be greeted with the sight of a beautifully tended place of worship, but one that has suffered years of under funding.
Mittal Steel came under fire this week for creating a "state within a state" in impoverished Liberia, according to a newly released report by human rights group Global Witness. In a report entitled Heavy Mittal? Global Witness said the steel company’s $900-million deal to exploit iron-ore reserves should be substantially renegotiated.
When the Cabinet is handed the final version of the department of trade and industry’s Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment Codes, small business will be watching to see how government intends to regulate them. Governments have always been keen to regulate business. But one would struggle to find an intervention more subtle, far-reaching and — here’s the rub — more complicated than the BEE codes.