An international panel of scientists has proposed that all countries cease building on coastal land that is less than a metre above high tide so as to avoid some of the worst impacts of climate change. The recommendation was one of many from experts from 11 countries.
The country’s biggest newspaper, the <i>Sunday Times</i>, is rumoured to be planning a new daily title, but is keeping tight-lipped. But media insiders say the project is well under way, with a launch possible as early as Easter. Sources say the new paper, to be titled the <i>Daily Times</i>, will be distributed free of charge to <i>Sunday Times</i> subscribers.
You would expect the man at the helm of a company responsible for the disappearance of hundreds of millions of rands of other people’s money at least to be a great fraudster. But in the case of the Mineworkers Provident Fund’s missing millions, J Arthur Brown may have just had a good eye for a weak system.
Last week’s right-wing spookstorie (scare story) about Nelson Mandela’s “death” revived a recurrent theme in the mythology of the Afrikaner far right. Rumours first swept the right that Mandela would die on September 13 2002. When this did not happen, the Boeremag hatched plans to kill him in a bomb explosion on October 11 2002.
The sudden upsurge in right-wing Afrikaner mobilisation and the purge of Somali traders from Port Elizabeth’s Motherwell township both underscore how far South Africa still has to travel in dealing with diversity and xenophobia to stem inter-group hatred and find the holy grail of non-racialism.
Ten Western tourists feared kidnapped in Ethiopia are safe and well and have been in contact with their tour operator, Samson Teshome, head of Origins Ethiopia, told Agence France-Presse on Friday. ”One group has reappeared with 10 people,” said Teshome, refusing to give their nationalities. ”Their satphone was not working, that is why they couldn’t contact us.”
Mozambican marines rescued more than 1 700 people, including 900 children, from flooding in central Mozambique on Friday. The marines used eight boats to mount the rescue operation in the central town of Buzi in the province of Sofala, where at least 28 000 people have been affected by the floods.
Transport Minister Jeff Radebe will appear in public as acting health minister for the first time at the opening of the newly built Pretoria Academic hospital on Friday. On Thursday he was briefed on Health Department programmes at a meeting with his deputy, Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge, and managers from the department, according to a statement.
The bones exhumed from a paupers’ grave in Mamelodi West cemetery near Pretoria on Thursday could well be the remains of African National Congress liberation fighter Looksmart Ngudle, who died four decades ago, said the exhumation team.
South Africa’s assumption of the United Nations Security Council’s rotating presidency this week could hardly have come at a more contentious time.