Should there be a sunset schedule for affirmative action in industry? Two key black intellectuals — Billiton SA’s Vincent Maphai and the University of Cape Town’s Loyiso Mbabane — have locked horns on this issue. Black economic empowerment (BEE) is now mainstream policy and big business. With much BEE now framed by the Broad-Based BEE Act, there is hot debate about how earlier provisions and policies need to be adapted to fit in with it.
There were mixed emotions for victorious Greece pair Georgios Karagounis and Zisis Vryzas after their dramatic silver goal triumph over the Czech Republic sealed a place in the final of Euro 2004. While Vryzas was jumping for joy at realising his dream, Karagounis was reflecting on the yellow card he received that rules him out of Sunday’s final against hosts Portugal.
Defending champion Roger Federer is happy to prove that big is not always better at Wimbledon. On rapid-fire grass courts, the big servers traditionally dominate but the Swiss top seed is showing that the man with the biggest gun doesn’t always win the war.
Serena Williams rallied from a set and 3-1 down — winning three key points with a cracked racket — to defeat Amelie Mauresmo and advance to the Wimbledon final for the third straight year. Williams will face 17-year-old Maria Sharapova in Saturday’s final.
A British couple has been reported missing in the Transkei region of the Eastern Cape and relatives fear they may have been hijacked, radio station Algoa FM News reported on Friday. Matthew James Henderson (34) and his wife, Daphne (30), were last heard of on Saturday.
The Spar South African women’s hockey team came back from losing 3-2 to Spain on Wednesday to beat Spain 2-1 in Barcelona on Friday. South Africa led 2-0 at the break. The goals were scored by Johke Koornhof and Pietie Coetzee. Coach Ros Howell said she was very pleased with the result of Friday’s match.
A finding of guilty with exacerbating circumstances was handed down in the Hate Speech Special Court yesterday, with sentences of imprisonment and corrective re-education passed on three defendants, Rudolph Crasston, Herbert Driver-Fullman and Josephine Jolson, all of Sandton. The trial arose from charges made under provisions of the Prohibition of Hate Speech Act of 2004. (Extract from Mail & Guardian April 14 2008)
The Johannesburg Tourism Company (JTC) is promoting the city as so much more than a place to enter and exit South Africa. Addressing the recent Southern Africa Tourism Services Association (Satsa) annual general meeting at the Indaba hotel in Fourways, JTC CEO Deon Viljoen unveiled a campaign to encourage international visitors to "stay another day" in Jozi.
"We clung on as the elephant thrashed around in the undergrowth a few metres from a young female tiger baring her teeth in what was either a genuine threat or a world-weary yawn. "Picture, picture, picture," shouted the mahout as we tried to respond from the unsteady platform on the elephant’s back." The hunt for tigers is an elusive but rewarding experience — which is pretty much what you would say about India.
"Everywhere you go, senses dulled by the daily workaday drudge are reinvigorated — by the morning-fresh mangoes so juicy they drip down your chin; by the coral reefs that house psychedelic fish and fauna; by the beaches and the people." Soak up Madagascar, where nine out of every 10 species living on the island cannot be found anywhere else in the world.