Several farmers have withdrawn from an empowerment programme, leaving it on the brink of disaster
"I fell in love with Thailand the moment I stepped off the plane in Bangkok. The country greeted us with a blast of humid air and mixture of smells I had never whiffed before." If affordability is a consideration for your next overseas trip, Thailand wins hands down. Yolandi Groenewald reports.
As one of South Africa’s remotest, largest, but least populated provinces, the Northern Cape could so easily have descended into chaos. In the 1994 elections the African National Congress had not secured the majority needed to govern the province, and the National Party was threatening to take over. The political future of the province was on a knife-edge.
South Africa is still outperforming other tourism markets in the world, despite the effects of a strong rand and the shortage of in-bound flights to Cape Town. So said South African Tourism at a media briefing in Johannesburg this week. Moeketsi Mosola, South African Tourism’s chief operating officer, said on Thursday that South Africa is still a leader in the field of global tourism.
Despite achieving the best matric results in the country for three years in a row, the Northern Cape is not benefiting from the knowledge of school-leavers in the province. "We are suffering from a massive brain drain," a worried Tina Joemat-Pettersson, provincial minister of education in the Northern Cape, told the <i>M&G</i>. "But we believe that we can turn it around."
Yolandi Groenewald went east to explore the ancient ruins of Angkor Wat — the biggest religious structure on Earth — in Cambodia, and found a country recovering from a troubled past. Angkor was virtually lost to the world for 800 years, concealed in the dense jungles of Cambodia.
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/ 20 February 2004
The residents of the Zevenfontein informal settlement, alongside Dainfern in northern Jo’burg, will be holding their breath on Monday. An application will be heard at the Witwatersrand High Court to determine whether their dream of owning houses in Cosmo City, a proposed housing project in northern Randburg, will finally be realised.
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/ 19 February 2004
The controversial Lindela Repatriation Centre has again come under fire from the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) after a Malawian, who has had permanent residence status in South Africa since 1997, was detained there for five days. Suzyo Kamanga’s* eyewitness account tells a horror story of assault at the centre where the only way out is through corrupt officials.
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/ 17 February 2004
The Khomani San community in the Northern Cape has laid claim to the whole Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park. The community won a land restitution claim five years ago in which it was awarded 36 000ha near the park. Two years ago the community was awarded another 25 000ha inside the park.
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/ 16 February 2004
For four years Eastern Cape schools have had no HIV/Aids-awareness material in their classrooms. The cause is bureaucratic delays, bungling and a startling lack of urgency. ”Aids is not urgent. It will always be there among us,” NZ Mtshabe, chairperson of the province’s tender board, is recorded as saying in board minutes from 2001 that the Mail & Guardian has seen.