A court case opening on Tuesday is expected to expose the conflict within the South African government as it battles to balance the demands of mining expansion and environmental protection. Billions of rands are at stake as the government awards huge mining licences while it is accused of putting several animal species and ecosystems under threat.
The skyscrapers in Africa’s financial heartland cast a long shadow over Maria Zwane’s home in Johannesburg’s teeming Alexandra township, where running water and proper sanitation remain a luxury. Few places illustrate the contrast between South Africa’s rich and poor more starkly than the ”Dark City” of Alexandra which nestles up against Sandton.
A wave of attacks on cash machines by gangs armed with dynamite has struck further fear into South Africans already dealing with sky-high crime rates, authorities said on Friday. Robbers who blew their way into an Absa ATM in the latest attack on Thursday near Johannesburg made off with thousands of rands in the 69th such raid on ATMs this year.
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/ 1 February 2007
South Africa football coach Carlos Alberto Parreira is undaunted by the task of transforming Bafana Bafana into a force to be reckoned with by the time the country hosts the 2010 World Cup. ”This is the kick-off for the World Cup in 2010,” the 64-year-old Parreira told a press conference in Johannesburg on Thursday.
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/ 16 November 2006
One of his friends may have died in front of his eyes but 19-year-old Leepile is in no mood to listen to pleas to stop ”train surfing” through South Africa’s sprawling Soweto township. ”We feel like we are in another world when doing it, in heaven or something. It’s like we are floating, and don’t fear anything,” says the teenager.
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/ 5 November 2006
Political inequality in South Africa may be a thing of the past, but the racial and gender divide appears very much intact when it comes to the boardroom, a new book shows. ”It is a hell of a slow pace … Not much of an improvement,” says Renee Bonorchis, co-author of Executive Pay in South Africa — Who Gets What and Why.
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/ 15 October 2006
African leaders need to set an example and test for HIV/Aids in public if they want to demonstrate their determination to fight the disease. Around 6 500 Africans are estimated to die every day from HIV/Aids but the stigma that continues to surround the disease means that members of the political elite are all too often reluctant to talk openly about it.
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/ 24 September 2006
The Western media is portraying Africa in a negative light and fails to cover positive economic and democratic developments, according to some of the continent’s top journalists. Africa has traditionally made the news for all the wrong reasons with reports on famine, civil war or the blight of HIV/Aids dominating international news coverage from the world’s poorest continent.