Western Cape Premier Ebrahim Rasool has flown in the face of a national marketing campaign for the 2010 Fifa World Cup by declaring that ”Cape Town must be the face of 2010” and that the city is the ”country’s strongest brand”. Rasool also said the province had to be the base for 2010 tourists, ”with people flying out to Gauteng for a match and then back again”.
Alvaro de Soto is not the first experienced diplomat to have entered the Middle East a moderate and to have left it two years later angry at the role of Israel and the United States in subverting the search for peace. Nor will he be the last. In his confidential 53-page report, dated May 5 (just before De Soto stepped down as the United Nations’s Middle East envoy) the former Peruvian foreign minister describes the reality of diplomacy.
What is President Robert Mugabe up to? Two events in the past fortnight lay bare the wily octogenarian’s strategy. On Monday he attempted to play the statesman. In an act of showmanship, he tried to give opposition leaders tractors and other equipment. In the same week his Cabinet authorised a raft of constitutional changes, which point to a far more sinister strategy.
About a month ago, CCTV images of a woman in a shopping mall carrying off a toddler who was not her own were broadcast on Mexico’s most popular television news show, introduced by the anchor as a rare chance to see child-stealing in action. And that was about that. A few days later, an English six-year-old called Madeleine McCann went missing in Portugal — and in Britain the media hurricane is still swirling.
Angry staff at Unisa have accused the university’s management of unilaterally downgrading their posts, with unclear implications both for their current earnings and future pay negotiations. They also say that although they have been given the choice of accepting or rejecting their new status, management has not spelt out what will happen if they reject it.
Gays are a guy’s best friend. Friendships between straight and gay men are increasingly common in the United Kingdom. Such celebrity couples include the stars of television comedy series Little Britain David Walliams and Matt Lucas, and Alan Carr and Justin Lee Collins, presenters of Channel 4 television’s The Friday Night Project.
British investigators visited South Africa last week as part of their probe into allegations that BAE Systems paid bribes to secure contracts under the arms deal, while pressure mounts on the company from law enforcement agencies around the world. BAE won the tender to supply Hawk trainer aircraft and SAAB Grippen fighters worth R30-billion under the deal.
It was the result Bafana Bafana wanted, but hardly a classy and composed display as they were outplayed by Congo for much of the frantic 1-1 African Nations Cup qualifying draw at the Municipal Stadium in Pointe Noire on Sunday afternoon. Bafana are now well positioned to qualify for next year’s African Nations Cup finals.
The Nurgalieva twins, Olesya and Elena, do not decide beforehand which of them will cross the line ahead of the other when they compete together. For this reason, Olesya, who won the 2007 Comrades Marathon down run, was champion on merit. Meanwhile, an unidentified runner collapsed on the finish line and later died, organisers said.
Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) affiliates will meet on Monday to come up with a range of percentage increases they are prepared to accept to end the three-week-old public-service strike. It is understood that the Independent Labour Caucus has already set a percentage range within which it can accept a deal.