A total of R22-billion will be spent in the next seven years on upgrading and expanding Gauteng’s highways. The Ben Schoeman highway between Johannesburg and Pretoria will get an additional lane in each direction and two lanes will be added to the R21 highway in each direction.
If United States President George Bush hopes fresh lobster and scenic boat rides will sway Russia’s Vladimir Putin, he’ll find out on Monday when they try to mend relations now at a post-Cold War low. The leaders will hold talks at the end of Putin’s overnight visit to the Bush family’s New England estate in a bid to find common ground on thorny issues.
Portugal is prepared to invite President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe to a summit of European and African leaders in Lisbon this year despite an European Union travel ban. The last European Union-Africa summit took place in 2000. Plans for a similar meeting in 2003 collapsed because of the Mugabe dispute.
The African National Congress (ANC) has dismissed a media report on its national policy conference in Midrand last week. The report in the Sunday Times was ”wholly and deliberately fabricated”, the ANC charged in a statement released late on Sunday night.
The European Union is failing to prioritise health and education in its plans for spending aid in poor countries, according to a new study, which also found that the EU appears to be using development aid to promote Western political and commercial interests, rather than to alleviate hardship.
With biofuels being blamed for rising food prices and offering limited environmental benefits, diverse luminaries such as former United States vice-president Al Gore and Microsoft’s Bill Gates are throwing their considerable support behind cellulosic ethanol, a second-generation biofuel.
Soccer fans might be feeling a little bewildered after the misinformation that characterised the fallout over the recently announced billion-rand Premier Soccer League (PSL) broadcasting-rights deal. But local soccer has never been healthier financially and, if anything, there will be more live soccer on free-to-air television than ever before.
A mechanical monster grabs the F-14 fighter jet and chews through one wing and then another, ripping off the Tomcat’s appendages before moving on to its guts. Finally, all that is left is a pile of shredded rubble. The Pentagon is paying a contractor to destroy old F-14s rather than sell the spares at the risk of their falling into the wrong hands.
The medical fraternity is up in arms over the Discovery Health Network — they call it "unethical" and an attempt by a dominant player to control their practices. Discovery says it is cutting the rate of medical inflation. This year, Discovery introduced a direct payment plan for general practitioners and specialists who sign up to their network.
While the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) shouts and stomps its feet after having lost the rights to the drawcard that is Premier Soccer League football, industry insiders accuse the public broadcaster of double standards and insist that its showing of public bravado is just sour grapes.