Silas Masindi was not entirely surprised by his HIV test results. The dapper garment trader, who discovered earlier this year that he was infected with the Aids virus, admits to using condoms somewhat erratically before he remarried three years ago. "I would meet a girl, use a condom, but after four months stop using them," he says.
Living and playing in the city, as he puts it, was such an appealing idea that two years ago Khabo Baloyi decided to buy an apartment in downtown Johannesburg.
Labelling this a high-risk investment, the bank would not approve his mortgage application, however. Authorities are now trying to change perceptions that the central business district of South Africa’s financial hub is, at best, neglected.
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/ 11 November 2005
Black women in South Africa are no strangers to photography. In years gone by, however, they have typically found themselves in front of the lens — often portrayed as ”’mother of the nation’, ‘black sex object’ or ‘poor, black victim without agency’,” in the words of gender activist Janine Moolman. Now this situation is changing. Black women are making up a growing list of photographers finding success behind the camera.
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/ 24 February 2005
The topic of campaign finance is rarely far from the minds of politicians or pundits in the run-up to elections — and Zimbabwe is no exception to this rule. With the country in the midst of a political and economic crisis, it may even be a hotter topic of discussion here than elsewhere. Parliamentary elections are scheduled to take place in Zimbabwe in six weeks’ time.
And so, another year in Zimbabwe — and in less than three months’ time, another election. It is a prospect that few seem to welcome. Compare the political environment in the country now with what it was ahead of the last parliamentary poll in 2000, and the lack of voter enthusiasm is not hard to understand.
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/ 13 October 2004
Zimbabwe’s clothing manufacturers understand all too well why Asian economies are often referred to as "tigers". With feline swiftness, low-priced imports from the East have cut a swathe through the local clothing, textile and footwear market. The influx of Asian goods now ranks high on Zimbabwean manufacturers’ list of worries — which also includes triple-digit inflation, shrinking consumer demand and political instability.
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/ 29 September 2004
Food and politics, as Zimbabweans are finding out, are not always mutually exclusive. If they were, what would explain official claims of a bumper harvest when independent assessments suggest otherwise? The clue seems to be parliamentary elections — now only six months away. A UN-led assessment mission says about five million of the country’s 12-million people will need food aid before the next harvest in March.
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/ 23 September 2004
Fuelled by a burgeoning Aids problem, tuberculosis (TB) is experiencing a resurgence in Southern Africa where health officials are beginning to talk of integrating programmes to fight the two diseases. In the past decade, there has been a four-fold increase in the number of TB cases in the sub-region, the present global epicentre of HIV/Aids. Southern Africa has 70% of the continent’s TB cases.
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/ 14 September 2004
Zimbabwe’s main opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), celebrated its fifth anniversary over the weekend. However, ceremonies to mark the event were overshadowed by the question mark hanging over the party’s participation in next year’s parliamentary election.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/pd.asp?cg=BreakingNews-Africa&ao=122141">Mugabe to seize bankers’ farms</a>
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/ 11 September 2004
Two years after Zimbabwean troops returned from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Zimbabwe’s public remains largely unaware of the activities of the mission. The government has kept a tight lid on information about the controversial deployment, which was allegedly carried out to prevent Congolese President Laurent Kabila from being ousted by rebels.