A two-day summit of Southern African leaders closes in Lusaka, Zambia, on Friday with observers eagerly anticipating word on two reports on efforts to resolve the crisis in neighbouring Zimbabwe. South Africa’s President Thabo Mbeki was due to report to the summit on his efforts to broker a stalemate between Zimbabwe’s ruling Zanu-PF and the opposition.
Peruvians pulled hundreds of dead from the rubble of homes and churches on Thursday and bodies piled up on street corners after a huge earthquake ravaged the country’s central coast. CNN reported that 510 people were killed and 1 500 injured in the 8,0-magnitude quake on Wednesday night.
When the first CDs rolled off the presses at the Philips factory near Hanover, Germany, on August 17 1982, nobody realised these newfangled compact discs would revolutionise entertainment. By the 1990s, CDs had not only nearly pushed out vinyl records but also paved the way for other uses of the digital disc.
There is growing tension within the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) about its political mandate. Union leaders appear to be deeply divided over who should succeed Thabo Mbeki as ANC president in December. Although Cosatu will not have voting powers at the ANC’s elective conference, it resolved at its ninth congress last year that its members should actively participate in identifying the ANC leadership that will be sympathetic to the interests of the working class.
Mauritius is an increasingly popular destination for wealthy South Africans looking for a contingency plan when developments in South Africa make them nervous, specifically crime and the destabilisation Zimbabwe might bring to the region. Mauritius is only too happy to oblige these highly skilled workers who are in demand worldwide.
As South African President Thabo Mbeki prepared to present his progress report on the mediation process in Zimbabwe to regional leaders gathered at this week’s Southern African Development Community summit, Zimbabwean Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa was insisting that there was no need for political reform in Zimbabwe.
Editing your own entry on Wikipedia is usually the province of vain celebrities, but a new website has uncovered dozens of companies that have been editing the site in order to improve their public image. The Wikipedia Scanner has unearthed a catalogue of organisations massaging entries, including the CIA and the British Labour party.
The Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge saga has exposed President Thabo Mbeki’s Machiavellianism and the secretive, top-down culture he has encouraged. Forces long held in check have started to break loose, and the consequences for Mbeki and his legacy are ominous.
Despite turmoil in international markets, the Reserve Bank’s monetary policy committee (MPC) raised interest rates another 50 basis points on Thursday, bringing the repo rate to 10% and the prime rate to 13,5%. ”The MPC noted that recent financial market developments in some of the developed economies have had spillover effects on emerging markets including South Africa,” it said in a statement.
The floor-crossing window, which opens next month, could diminish further the strength of most opposition parties. For the first time this year the floor-crossing window for national and provincial MPs will coincide with that for municipal councillors. The 11 opposition parties are expected to lose more members to the ruling African National Congress.