"India is a roaring capitalist success story." So said a recent issue of Foreign Affairs; and earlier this year many business executives and politicians in India celebrated as Lakshmi Mittal, the fifth-richest man in the world, finally succeeded in his hostile takeover of the Luxembourgian steel company Arcelor.
A 78-year-old woman managed to identify the men who raped her and then set fire to her body before she died, Eastern Cape police said on Thursday. The brutal rape and murder of the woman and her niece on Tuesday last week have left the Grahamstown community shocked and angry, according to police spokesperson Captain Mali Govender.
Shelter is precious in the refugee camps along the rocky road north of Muzaffarabad, the battered capital of Pakistani Kashmir. Hardly an inch is vacant as tents, rickety shelters and half-destroyed houses jostle for space along a narrow strip of land between the steep mountains and a rushing, slate-blue river.
South African Minister of Finance Trevor Manuel said on Thursday evening that the modern world offered many opportunities for public finance innovation and for new kinds of partnership with the private sector and across national boundaries, but that getting it right meant keeping it simple.
The construction of the controversial R5-billion De Hoop Dam in Mpumalanga will go ahead — but with restrictions. Environment Minister Marthinus van Schalkwyk approved the project last week, although he hinted that his final record of decision, to be released on October 13, would embody some conditions.
From gleaming shopping malls in downtown Nairobi to gold mines buried deep in the Congolese jungle, South Africa is flexing its corporate muscle on the world’s poorest continent. South African shopping chains Shoprite and Pick ‘n Pay bring choice and price stability to African market places, while millions have made their first phone call thanks to cellular operators MTN and Vodacom.
The Special Investigating Unit has saved the South African taxpayer almost R1-billion by rooting out corruption among government officials, said unit head Willie Hofmeyr on Thursday. Most of the savings come from the departments of social development and correctional services, which have been plagued by serious graft allegations relating to social grants and medical aid funds.
The murder rate in Rosebank, Johannesburg, is up by 100% on last year — from one murder to two. Nearby Parkview also recorded two murders last year. This underlines the fact that South Africa’s high national murder rate — 39,5 per 100 000, down from 47,4 five years ago — conceals wild variations from area to area.
The IFP goes to its national general conference to take stock of its declining fortunes and formulate a turnaround strategy to attract the ”sophisticated urban voter”. The NGC is the party’s highest decision-making body. For the first time in the party’s 31year history the NGC of 100 members will be elected by delegates rather than being anointed by IFP president Mangosuthu Buthelezi.
Pennsylvania’s Amish began to bury the victims of this week’s schoolroom massacre on Thursday amid renewed concern that their private, rural way of life was yielding to modernity. The first funeral cortege of 37 horse-drawn carriages, driven by grim-faced, black-clad Amish, trotted through the main street of Georgetown