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 […]

Riaan Wolmarans CD OFTHEWEEK ‘You know I’m not dead,” sings Billy Corgan confidently on Everlasting Gaze, the hit opening track of The Smashing Pumpkins’ latest CD, Machina:The Machines of God (Virgin). But on the track Heavy Metal Machine, he wonders:”If I were dead, would my records sell?” And the Pumpkins are dead, for all purposes, […]

Belinda Beresford Holding a telecommunications conference in Nigeria was a fitting act since the country encapsulates the problems and the lure of telecommunications in Africa. Last week’s Global Information Infrastructure Commission (GIIC) conference was being held in Africa’s most populous nation and one laden with natural resources. Yet the country’s infrastructure is collapsing. Seventeen companies […]

drums Paul Kirk Rural communities in the KwaZulu-Natal Midlands may be slowly poisoning themselves by using metal drums stolen from a highly controversial chemical factory. Thor Chemicals, the plant in Cato Ridge, KwaZulu-Natal, that was the subject of a judicial commission of inquiry after two of its workers died from mercury poisoning, has admitted that […]

Kelwyn Sole SONG TRIALS by Mxolisi Nyezwa (Gecko) For a number of years now, Mxolisi Nyezwa’s poems have appeared in local and international journals, as well as forming part of the 1992 collection Essential Things. In addition, he is editor of one of the most innovative literary journals published at the moment, Kotaz. Nyezwa is […]

SOUTH Africa is to host the biggest aerospace and defence exhibition ever to be staged in Africa in early September, the SA Air Force said on Friday. SAAF chief Lieutenant-General Roelf Beukes said the show at Waterkloof air base near Pretoria would feature about 250 exhibitors from all over the world. Briefing reporters at the […]

to how the votes will fall Nawaal Deane Voting to decide the host of the 2006 soccer World Cup will take place in three rounds through a process of elimination, with the country receiving the fewest votes falling out of the bidding after each round. All executive members of the Federation of International Football Association […]