To date, Zimbabwe’s leading political parties, Zanu-PF and the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), have failed to find enough common ground for official talks. For more than a year South African President Thabo Mbeki’s office has told critics that there are talks, or talks about talks, going on. In reality that has turned out to be empty talk. Mugabe is skilfully dancing around Zimbabwe’s issues
while Africa obligingly turns a blind eye.
Four years ago the beach at Sodwana in northern KwaZulu-Natal could have been mistaken for the Ben Schoeman highway between Pretoria and Johannesburg. Returning from a swim, you had to remember to look left and right before crossing the beach back to your towel. Has banning 4x4s from South Africa’s beaches been a good or bad thing? We investigate the pros and cons.
"Flying toilets" are a new phenomenon in Kibera, Kenya’s largest slum, where women and girls are forced to use desperate measures to overcome inadequate sanitation. "We keep our business [faeces] for the evenings. In the dark we wrap it in plastic bags and throw it as far away as possible. These are our flying toilets and our neighbours do the same." How much progress has the world made since all the fanfare of the World Summit in 2002?
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)
"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.