OWN CORRESPONDENT, London | Friday 10.30am. OIL giant Shell will next week launch the world’s first large scale commercial solar electrification project which will eventually bring power to 50000 homes in the Eastern Cape. President Nelson Mandela will attend the inauguration of the scheme in the Bipa area on February 24, pulling the switch on […]

FORMER Rwandan health minister Casimir Bizimungu has been arrested in Kenya on suspicion of war crimes and will be moved to the International Criminal Tribunal in Arusha, Tanzania, a tribunal spokesperson said on Friday. “He has not been accused but he is a suspect,” spokesperson Kingsley Moghalu said. The court was set up by the […]

Just 10 years ago, this week’s Desert Classic could not have taken place. David Davies on the miracle of golf in Dubai Every evening at the Emirates Golf Club, the tables are dressed for dinner. Severely starched tablecloths lie underneath the silver service, with the wine glasses stretching away in serried ranks towards the centrepiece, […]

MOZAMBIQUE will soon be one of Africa’s most competitive producers of sugar thanks to the privatisation of the industry two years ago, a senior government official said on Wednesday. Arnaldo Ribeiro, director of Mozambique’s sugar institute, anticipates that Mozambique will be producing at least 300000 tons of sugar a year by 2005, following rehabilitation of […]

Neil Manthorp in Christchurch Cricket Gary Kirsten’s contribution to South Africa’s seven-wicket win over New Zealand on Wednesday night would have been seen as routine two years ago but this time his 81 not out might prove to be a watershed. It just doesn’t matter how much you have played, and how much experience you […]

Peter Dickson Eastern Cape pensioners almost went without their welfare grants this month when a dispute arose on pay-out day following allegations that teenagers were receiving pension payments. The villages of Dyantyi and Makapela in the Centane district have been feuding for generations, and allegations of corruption in monthly pension payments sparked the latest row. […]

Bruce Murray Crossfire Last week’s article, “D’Oliviera affair’s shameful secrets”, got only half the story, as it took no account of the new documents now available in South Africa. These include Cabinet minutes unearthed for the truth commission. Two questions had remained unanswered: would the government have accepted Basil d’Oliviera as part of the Marylebone […]

The assumption that anyone who does well in one area of public life is some sort of “renaissance man” – able to turn their attention to any other field and succeed – is a fallacy to which South African society has recently shown itself unfortunately prone. Mr Justice Johann Kriegler performed admirably on the Bench, […]

Matthew Krouse Down the tube `Greetings to Germany from the youth of South Africa!” They could have been words on a corny postcard – a happy message to friends, from friends far away. But they weren’t. Rather, they were the prelude to an in-your-face cultural confrontation that, with the aid of advanced technology, will be […]

Do annual government budgets really matter? A great fuss invariably accompanies them and they attract a degree of examination which seems quite disproportionate for what they usually turn out to be. In fact, the annual budget is really little more than a household accounting of how much money will be needed to pay for the […]