SIXTY people were killed when their bus was swept away in floods caused by torrential rains. Police said the bus, travelling from the capital to Harar in the east, was caught in floodwaters near Wollenchiti, 125 km south of Addis Ababa. The bus was carrying 66 people. The bodies of 60, including three children and […]

Howard Barrell and Barry Streek How do you react to the perception that both parties are ganging up against blacks? That is nothing new. They have been saying that about us and about the DP [Democratic Party] for as long as I can remember. The problem with the ANC [African National Congress] is that they […]

Connie Selebogo Anita Manyike (16) battles to hold a pen firmly to write out her schoolwork. Access to a computer – a government grant from the Department of Communications to her school – could not have come at a better time. For the past six years Manyike’s handwriting has deteriorated as a result of her […]

Peter Eaton NOT THE ART MOVIE OFTHEWEEK ‘It’s an epic. It’s a big, big movie,” claims writer and director Tim Robbins of his Cradle Will Rock. Actually, it’s so huge that it hurts and just doesn’t to know what to do with itself for a its 132-minute length. Purporting to be “a (mostly) true story”, […]

Barry Streek The large-scale firing and retrenchment of workers on Western Cape fruit farms will cause huge damage to rural civil society and to the quality of life in the province but it won’t make the industry productive and internationally competitive, two University of Western Cape (UWC) researchers have concluded. They also dismiss claims that […]

financier Justin Arenstein Former Mpumalanga premier Mathews Phosa distanced himself from shady “freelance” financier Jean Mopotu this week following revelations that the Zairian tried to source funding for Phosa’s ambitious R390-million casino development in Mozambique. Mopotu attained notoriety in 1998 when he helped international fraud fugitive and suspected chemi- cal weapons dealer Moshe Regen- streich […]

Iden Wetherell Zimbabweans are this week treating what is officially a win for President Robert Mugabe’s Zanu-PF party in the general election as a triumph for the opposition. Zanu-PF retained power by hanging on to 62 of the 120 elected seats in last weekend’s poll. But it lost 57 seats to the Movement for Democratic […]

SOUTH Africa and Botswana have signed a bilateral military pact on defence and security, SABC radio news reported on Friday. Speaking at the signing ceremony in Gaberone, SA Defence Minister Mosiuoa Lekota said the time had come for Africa to control and manage its political and military conflicts. The agreement would bind the two countries […]

Howard Barrell and Barry Streek Will the Democratic Alliance (DA) make inroads into the black community? We might not. There is a degree of risk involved in this or any other such arrangement. There always is. It is a certainty that we were putting ourselves into a political glass ceiling by continuing this war between […]

sales Glenda Daniels While the government’s final plan for the restructuring of state assets will be released within weeks – about two months later than scheduled and with labour organisations demanding a moratorium – it is expected that the motions of consultation will take place before the massive privatisation steamrolls ahead. Labour organisations has not […]