Gauteng housing MEC Nomvula Mokonyane lashed out at the illegal occupation of Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) houses in violence-ridden Diepsloot on Thursday. Residents of the part informal settlement, part housing estate, north-west of Johannesburg, have been protesting this week against their rumoured removal from Diepsloot to Brits, north of Pretoria, on July 14.
Police won’t be fooled
Hundreds of millions of rands in public funds have been wasted as key government development funders lurch from crisis to crisis, stalling the disbursement of crucial money. Committed to finding more creative ways than social grants to fight poverty, the government has put significant funds into development agencies — but the returns have in the main been minimal.
The International Monetary Fund has delayed Zimbabwe’s possible expulsion for unpaid debt, giving the southern African country six months to turn around its economy. Zimbabwe, which has been gripped by severe economic problems for the past six years, was facing possible expulsion as a member of the fund over unpaid debt amounting to about $290-million by February.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/pd.asp?ao=118381">AU to suppress Zimbabwe report</a>
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/pd.asp?ao=118354">Robert Mugabe’s reign of terror</a>
The remaining soccer referees earmarked for questioning in the mop up phase of the Operation Dribble match-fixing investigation evaded police on Wednesday, spokesperson Senior Superintendent Selby Bokaba said on Thursday. ”They didn’t sleep at home,” said Bokaba. ”We only found their wives.”
The confidence levels of South African retailers soared to a 16-year high of 80 index points in the second quarter of 2004, jumping 15 points from 65 index points during the first quarter of the year, according to the results from the latest Bureau for Economic Research retail survey.
An impoverished South African family has launched a legal battle against United States entertainment giant Walt Disney seeking royalties for its use of a song by a popular Zulu composer in The Lion King. Solomon Linda, a Zulu migrant worker turned songwriter, wrote the tune in 1939 that became the world hit The Lion Sleeps Tonight.
Police will maintain a strong presence in the Diepsloot informal settlement north west of Pretoria on Thursday following the ongoing violent protests in the area, police spokesperson Inspector Percy Morokane said. He said although the situation was calm, and ”everyone was going to work as if nothing has happened in the past days”, police were not going to be ”fooled”.
The African Union was on Wednesday set to suppress one of its own reports critical of Zimbabwe’s human rights record, in the wake of protests about procedure and claims that the two-year-old assessment was ”smuggled” on to the agenda of this weeks AU summit.
African Parliament comes to SA
Robert Mugabe’s reign of terror
Iraq’s new Prime Minister, Ayad Allawi, was on Wednesday given sweeping powers to counter insurgents, including the right to declare a state of emergency and impose nationwide curfews. The comprehensive package of measures will also allow him to appoint military governors to take charge of cities or provinces, close the country’s borders, seize the assets of suspects and monitor their phone calls and e-mails.
Like all great double acts they came together to play to each other’s strengths and cancel out their weaknesses. The straight man and the crowd pleaser; John Kerry painted in matt, John Edwards in gloss. The two Johnnies, on the first stop of a tour they hope will put them in the White House.