Farmers in East Africa are set to enter the lucrative international organic produce market after launching their own seal of quality for organic products. The farmers hope the new East African Organic Products Standard (EAOS) — launched at the East African Organic Conference in Dar es Salaam this week — will boost sales for struggling farmers in the region and give their produce an exclusivity they can market at premium prices.
The scrap has well and truly begun for the precious subscription broadcasting licences that the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) intends to issue. This week saw the launch of public hearings held by the regulator, which will allow it to whittle down the 18 applicants to those deserved few, who will be given an opportunity to make their fortune in the billion-rand pay-TV industry.
Continuity has always been the name of the game in Nigerian politics and this time is no different. The outgoing president, Olusegun Obasanjo, made much of the fact that he oversaw the first civilian-to-civilian transition in the nation’s history, but what does this amount to?
This week the Bush administration nominated Robert Zoellick to succeed outgoing World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz. Stephanie Wolters asked South African Finance Minister Trevor Manuel about the controversial nomination process and the fight against corruption in Africa.
Neoconservative forces, via compliant media outlets and Christian right groupings within the European Parliament, are preparing their latest attack on Hugo Chávez and the government of Venezuela. The latest focus of the campaign is the decision of Venezuela’s broadcasting authorities not to renew the licence of the private television channel Radio Television Caracas.
Endangered, hunted, smuggled and now abandoned, 5 000 of the world’s rarest animals have been found drifting in a deserted boat near the coast of China. The pangolins, Asian giant turtles and lizards were crushed inside crates on a rickety wooden vessel that had lost engine power off Qingzhou island in the southern province of Guangdong.
Surrounded by alpine mea-dows and snowcapped peaks, the town of Punakha in central Bhutan bears witness to the difficulty of taking a Buddhist Himalayan monarchy into the 21st century. Inside the 17th-century Tibetan dzong, topped with pagoda-like golden roofs, are 172 civil servants running the affairs of thousands of villagers.
All is emptiness, according to practitioners of Zen Buddhism, and you don’t need to read many news stories about the hotel heiress and inexplicable celebrity Paris Hilton before conceding that they’ve probably got a point. Now, though, as Hilton prepares for a 45-day jail sentence, she has been photographed holding a copy of the bestselling book The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle.
After two weeks of fierce debate and legal wrangling about the identity and actions of the anonymous blogger who published graphic descriptions of the sex he allegedly had with South African celebrities while working as a male prostitute, the blog has come to a sudden end.
Sasol’s coal-to-liquid technology is making headlines from Johannesburg to Beijing and New York. It has scored big with the coal industry as a way for coal-rich countries such as the United States, China and South Africa to reduce their dependency on imported fuel from hotspots such as the Middle East and Nigeria.