Spare a thought for the humble tyre. Its entire working life is spent exposed to the elements, it gets dragged along the roughest of road surfaces with scant regard for its well-being, and it receives little, if any, tender loving care. Yet these rubber hoops are what keep our cars and our families safe on the road.
There is a global consensus on the importance of developing trade and the fact that only the World Trade Organisation (WTO), by realising the November 2001 Doha Development Agenda, can push through the development-friendly reforms that are urgently needed. World Trade Organisation secretary general Supachai Panitchpakdi argues that only the WTO can facilitate fair trade.
I wish it were possible to storm the gates of neo-liberal state power in this country, dominated by the ruling African National Congress, and declare a workers’ socialist republic. But I know with certainty that at least for the next decade there will be no such prospect. The ANC is still deeply rooted among the majority black working class and it will take a long time to uproot this support.
The South African government is to review finance allocations to public tertiary institutions across the country, with specific attention to the National Student Financial Aid Scheme, according to the state news agency BuaNews. It said this is to provide opportunities for higher learning for poor young people.
Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa on Tuesday began a three-day state visit to Botswana to develop trade and economic cooperation between the Southern African neighbours. Botswana’s ambassador to Zambia, Zibani Nthakhwane, said the main focus of the visit will be trade and developing the first road link between the two neighbours.
President Thabo Mbeki and Anglo American’s top executives met behind close doors at Mbeki’s home in Cape Town on Tuesday. Anglo American chief executive Tony Trahar, accompanied by Anglo American South Africa’s newly appointed CE, Lazarus Zim, and chairperson Mark Moody-Stuart, requested the meeting to discuss the company’s financial results.
Local mobile operator MTN announced on Tuesday that it has joined the Proudly South African campaign. As its members, the campaign lists a number of the country’s original initiatives, companies and organisations — both civil and corporate — who have all pledged to serve the citizens of South Africa with the best products and services.
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Fraud and corruption accused Schabir Shaik backdated two documents to gain financial benefits from French arms company Thomson CSF, the Durban High Court heard on Tuesday. The documents related to a service-provider agreement between Shaik and Thomson, which the state alleges was part of a bribe Shaik solicited for Deputy President Jacob Zuma.
The results of a CT scan done on King Tutankhamun’s mummy indicate the boy king was not murdered, but may have suffered a badly broken leg shortly before his death at age 19 — a wound that could have become infected, Egypt’s top archaeologist said on Tuesday.
How is it, ask the cynics in Beijing, that the Chinese government can pass some of the most beautiful laws in the world yet end up with one of the ugliest environments? It is a question that has haunted leaders since Mao Zedong, who wrote poems as well as legislation in defence of a glorious natural landscape that he then went on to defile.