Two trucks with cages crammed with Burmese migrant workers halt abruptly beside the Thai-Burmese frontier’s river landing stage. Detainees, standing and sitting, are pressed hard against one another and the wire mesh that is their temporary prison. The deportees appear resigned to their fate. When the doors fly open, 140 men and a lone woman file out and down steep steps on the Thai side of the border to a waiting barge.
New Anglo American chief Cynthia Carroll has vowed to ramp up mining safety, and the departure of two top Anglo executives this week thrust the thorny issue into the spotlight. Local mining companies have a parlous safety record, in part because of the depth of the mines, and Carroll may find that mining safety, or the lack thereof, is the one challenge that becomes her nemesis.
I had intended to go up to the north of Côte d’Ivoire. I still have fond memories of the two years I spent teaching English in a secondary school in Korhogo, the regional capital. I was enchanted by the contrast between my experience as an Abidjanaise and life in the northern region, writes Véronique Tadjo.
MTN could face a multimillion-rand fine if the Competition Tribunal agrees with Cell C and the Competition Commission that it has been involved in anti-competitive conduct. This follows the Competition Commission’s decision to refer Cell C’s complaint to the Competition Tribunal for adjudication after it found that MTN was engaging in "price discrimination".
Two major fuel refineries producing 380 000 barrels a day have been shut down as the chemical industry strike entered its fifth day on Friday. Meanwhile, the mining industry is bracing itself for a massive strike after unions this week declared a dispute with the Chamber of Mines.
The highly regarded head of the government’s Aids unit, Nomonde Xundu, resigned but withdrew her notice pending negotiations with the health department’s director-general Thami Mseleku. Four sources within government and civil society confirmed independently that Xundu was on her way out.
The implementation of the ceasefire agreement between the Burundian government and the rebel Palipehutu-FNL (FNL) reached an impasse last week after the FNL went underground, complaining of biased mediation and failed promises. The FNL said that a lack of progress with the Joint Verification Monitoring Mechanism (JVMM), set up under the ceasefire agreement signed last year, led it to abandon the process.
Do you ever regret getting that tattoo? People often do — and then discover that removing it is a long, slow, often expensive and sometimes painful process, the results of which are by no means guaranteed. But thanks to Professor Edith Mathiowitz of Brown University in the United States, you might never need to again.
More public servants are blowing the whistle on corruption and unethical behaviour, but government departments are sluggish in joining the fight. This is the thrust of a trend analysis report compiled by the Public Service Commission (PSC) that compares the responses by public servants between 2004/05 and 2005/06.
Clive Derby-Lewis has denied having any information pointing to a “wider conspiracy” to assassinate South African Communist Party former general secretary Chris Hani in 1993. Instead, he says, it is the ANC, the SACP and George Bizos who have suppressed information about Hani’s safety on the day of his murder.