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/ 12 September 2007
Petrochemical giant Sasol’s announcement that it plans to transfer 10% of its issued share capital, worth close on R18-billion, into black hands has inspired mixed messages from trade unions. The Chemical, Energy, Paper, Printing, Wood and Allied Workers’ Union on Tuesday "cautiously welcomed" the news.
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/ 12 September 2007
A tropical sun rises over Havana and in the neighbourhood of Vedado, a maze of worn, bleached apartment blocks, a unique healthcare system limbers up for another day. In Parque Aguirre, a small plaza shaded by palms, two dozen pensioners form a semi-circle and perform a series of stretches and gentle exercises, responding to the commands of a spry septuagenarian.
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/ 12 September 2007
Mpumalanga and North West have spent R166-million on strike recovery measures, Education Minister Naledi Pandor told the National Council of Provinces on Tuesday. Replying to oral questions, Pandor said Mpumalanga had spent R96-million on teacher remuneration for Saturday and holiday classes.
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/ 12 September 2007
Americans stood in silence to remember the nearly 3 000 people killed in the September 11 attacks on Tuesday as Osama bin Laden resurfaced to praise the suicide hijackers who carried them out six years ago to the day. New Yorkers observed silent moments at the very times jets crashed into the World Trade Centre towers and when each tower collapsed.
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/ 12 September 2007
Samson Mashaba struggles to retain his sense of humour as he waits to see his doctor. ”If you’re unlucky, you’ll die standing here,” says the 69-year-old as he surveys the queue ahead of him at a rural hospital in Mpumalanga. While South Africa may boast some of the finest hospitals on the continent in cities like Johannesburg and Cape Town, rural healthcare is dogged by a lack of cash, personnel and facilities.
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/ 12 September 2007
Should Belgium break up? Would anyone in the rest of the world notice? Should they care? These are some of the questions being raised in a media frenzy both in and outside the country as a political impasse has fanned the flames of separatism in the Dutch-speaking north.
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/ 12 September 2007
Helen Oyeyemi is without doubt a very intelligent writer. Comparisons to Ben Okri, Chinua Achebe and others are not empty literary plaudits. Aptly for a writer tastefully compared with giants such as these, Oyeyemi takes risks.
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/ 12 September 2007
One of the upshots of the Zimbabwe crisis is the number of books deciphering it. Writers go there, spend a few months and decide, after seeing so much crazy stuff going on, that they can write a book. The results, mostly, have been at best half-ignorant books telling us what we already know and, at worst, downright inaccurate fantasies that feed into racist stereotypes.
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/ 12 September 2007
Sir Paul McCartney is rumoured to be stepping out with Renée Zellweger now that the pair have been spotted enjoying a candlelit meal together. It’s good to know that divorce difficulties haven’t put Sir Paul off his food, but can he stomach Zellweger’s appetites?
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/ 12 September 2007
Yasmina Khadra has written a heart-stinging and challenging successor to previous novels The Swallows of Kabul and The Attack. Set mainly in Iraq, it goes straight to the crucial issues and moral debates of our times, which most of us manage to ignore. It begins with violence against the innocent in Iraq and ends with similar violence planned against the perpetrators where, once again, the innocent will be most affected.