TUESDAY 11.00AM: THERE are still a large number of troops belonging to the Angolan rebel movement Unita in several provinces, in spite of its claims to have demilitarised its forces, according to a United Nations official. Quoting a report by the commander of UN forces overseeing the peace process, UN representative for Angola Alouine Blondin […]
MONDAY, 4.00PM: IN an unexpected turn in the Lusaka High Court on Monday, the state dropped all charges against former Zambian president Kenneth Kaunda, after which Judge Japhta Banda declared Kaunda a free man. “It’s great, it’s great,” declared Zambia’s 74-year-old founding father as hundreds of his supporters broke through a police cordon to celebrate […]
MONDAY 6.00PM: FORMER Zimbabwean president Canaan Banana has denied allegations by three policemen, two air force officers, two secret service agents, a cook, a jobseeker and a hitchhiker that he either forced or attempted to force them to have sex with him. Banana, 62, a former Methodist minister, was appearing in the Harare High Court […]
Tim Radford United States space scientists believe they will be able to conjure up refrigerator and furnace insulation tiles out of thin air. They are experimenting with a composite material called aerogel, the lightest solid known. A lump of this “frozen smoke” the size of a man would weigh less than 0,45kg, but could bear […]
Peter Mullan, winner of the best actor award at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, has a tale to tell those who wonder if it all might go to his head. It stems from his experience working on Braveheart, Mel Gibson’s Oscar-winner about the exploits of William Wallace. Mullan remembers watching the director of the second […]
Charl Blignaut investigates the fives rules for how to become a South African pop icon. (Don’t be scared to perform from the back of a truck) In 1985, six months after Lucky Dube’s fourth mbaqanga album had turned to gold – sales in excess of 25 000 units – the recording studio was again booked […]
Simon Caulkin Stock options have become the Nineties way of rewarding top managers. But as the number of options being granted has exploded, so the boom in share prices has inflated the value of those options. The sheer volume of stock options has achieved such scale that it threatens to undermine the validity of company […]
Arvind Ganesan In their search for finite resources, oil companies must partner governments who may have dismal human rights records – witness Total’s involvement with the Burmese junta in constructing the Yadana natural-gas pipeline. In Colombia the drive to develop oil fields has landed companies in the middle of a war zone. To ensure oil […]
Aventura bid Ann Eveleth Minister for Public Enterprises Stella Sigcau came under severe criticism this week for “acting beyond her authority” in the sale of tourism parastatal Aventura. A senior government official and a member of one of four consortiums expected to lose the bid this week said Sigcau and her privatisation advisers, HSBC Investment […]
Suzy Bell On stage in Durban Five years ago a young lad called John was living in London. He woke up one freezing winter’s morning and decided to come home and promised himself that if he was not touring his country as a stand-up comedian by the age of 25, he’d become a panel beater […]