A high court tug-of-war over prime property in Port Elizabeth is turning the vision of a giant statue of Nelson Mandela into little more than a pipe dream. Transport parastatal Transnet, which owns the land, has distanced itself in court papers from the proposed statue, saying it has "no intention of participating in the proposed development".
Janjaweed is not a name. It is a curse. To the militia’s victims the Arabic word has come to mean devil on horseback, but the chief "devil" accused of bringing devastation to Sudan sits not on horseback but in a plush armchair in his family residence in Khartoum. He is allegedly the most senior field commander of the Janjaweed.
The Zimbabwean government this week stepped up efforts to crack down on the <i>Mail & Guardian</i>. The police served a subpoena on the security manager of Century Bank in Harare summonsing information about the newspaper’s bank account, including records of cheque transactions, since the beginning of the year.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/pd.asp?ao=118793">Former M&G journo under hotel arrest</a>
The South African rand was hovering just below the psychological R6,00 per dollar level in late afternoon trade on Friday, after breaching this level a couple of hours earlier on the back of offshore dollar sales. The rand earlier touched R5,95 the first time since June1999.
The African Union under the leadership of Alpha Konare, Mali’s former president, has committed itself to moving from non-interference to non-indifference. It was incredible to see African leaders calling on their Sudanese colleague, Omar el-Bashir, to account for the situation in Darfur: a far cry from the days of the Organisation of African Unity when such interference was taboo.
Vehicle sales are a major economic index — but they also serve as a useful demographic indicator. This week vehicle finance bank Wesbank released figures showing that over the past 10 years the value of vehicle loans to black clients increased tenfold, from R736-million in 1994 to R7,6-billion in 2004. This increase occurred against the backdrop of a 490% increase in the bank’s total book.
For too long science has overlooked the hillbilly. Perhaps fearing being tied to a tree and molested, anthropologists and sociologists have eschewed the deep woods, failing to draw back the mosquito net of secrecy that still obscures this remarkable tribe. Scratch the surface of the hillbilly, and we find little rolls of dirt and traces of antifreeze under our fingernails. Wash the surface and then scratch, and we find the story of humanity itself.
The <i>Mail & Guardian</i>’s 2/10 rating for Ntsika Enterprise Promotion Agency in its assessment of agencies last week does not reflect our reputation as a leading agency that supports small business in South Africa. We operate as a wholesale agency, which means we use intermediary organisations to deliver business services on our behalf, writes Lefa Mallane.
Every parent knows the moment the balance of dependency shifts. Nothing needs be said; both parties know instinctively that from now on it is negotiation time. It is the recognition of equality of power. Governments know it, too. Phoney equality — as represented by the P in Nepad (New Partnership for Africa’s Development) — is seen for what it is.
The angry response of Minister of Foreign Affairs Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma to the Mail & Guardian‘s report on the African Union summit last week gave a signal that the South African government is hardening its stance on Zimbabwe. Zuma denied supporting Zimbabwe’s move to stifle a report by the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights critical of that country’s human rights record.