We can judge how far the recent Nigerian elections fell below internationally accepted standards by the wide range of observers who cried foul. The two previous exercises — 1999 and 2003 — were marred by widespread irregularities, but on a lesser scale and at a time when everyone was still anxious to keep the military at bay.
South Africa’s only civil society network for rape and abuse victims, Themba Lesizwe, has collapsed after the European Union withdrew â,¬20-million it had pledged to the organisation over the next three years. Themba Lesizwe, established in 2001 by four NGOs, had grown into a network of 269 affiliates in the victim empowerment sector in South Africa.
Theo Botha is not your typical activist. He doesn’t carry placards or wear T-shirts with socialist slogans. He is always mild-mannered, well spoken and neatly dressed in standard corporate attire. All the same, he is probably the most unpopular man in local business, with a knack for asking powerful people uncomfortable questions.
Schools and communities around Mooi Nooi in North West will be major beneficiaries of an ICT in education programme recently launched by the Lonmin Community Development Trust and Microsoft South Africa (MSA). MSA has already, through its Partners in Learning programme, “funded and provided the national teacher professional development model for the initial training of teachers”.
Amid the chaos of Guatemala City’s evening rush hour, a grieving father sits motionless on a concrete bench beside a main road. On New Year’s Day his seven-year-old daughter was killed. She had been sent out to buy a nappy for her baby brother but never arrived home — hours later her decapitated body was found in one of the deep gullies that run through the capital’s slums.
‘Hands up those who know who the black person to invent a clock is,” said the teacher to her class. No child raised a hand. “Does anyone know who Patricia Bath is? Who is the black person who invented the electric kettle in 1922?” Again, no hands were raised.
Despite the concerted efforts of Khutsong residents, the government is pressing ahead with its decision to have Merafong local municipality incorporated into North West. The Merafong Demarcation Forum (MDF) strategy of mounting mass protests in opposition to the demarcation appears to be ineffective.
Let’s hope Lords Hutton and Butler (authors of two United Kingdom reports into the circumstances surrounding the invasion of Iraq) were taking notes. An 81-year-old retired judge, Eliyahu Winograd, has just given a masterclass in how to conduct a genuine, fearless and plainspoken inquiry into a government failure.
The winds of digital revolution have taken education by storm and do not appear to be relenting. Today’s new buzzword — raved about by e-learning fanatics — is podcasting and it is being hailed as an innovation that will enhance the quality of teaching and learning.
”Inge Bongo, the heiress to a very rich country in Central Africa, is in town to purchase a home. [Estate agent] Kurt Rappaport shows her a -million property in Malibu’s exclusive Broad Beach area, but she feels the home ‘lacks grandeur’. [Agency] co-owner Stephen Shapiro shows her a stately -million Beverly Hills mansion that turns out to be just what she’s looking for.”