From September 18 to 21, I will have the honour of presiding over the Congress of South African Trade Unions’s (Cosatu) ninth national congress, at which more than 3 000 delegates from our 20 affiliated unions will hammer out a programme for the next three years and elect a leadership.
If you’re ever stuck for a tie-break question to decide a pub quiz, try this: How many Oscars has the British government won? This is not a joke about Tony Blair’s thespian tendencies; the answer is two. In 1944, the ministry of information’s Desert Victory won the first-ever Academy Award for documentary; and two years later the trophy was shared with the United States government for The True Glory.
Following the runaway success of popular US sicom Will & Grace, it appears that US television is coming out of the closet and is embracing more gay-themed content on the box these days. The creators of the hit series tell Matt Wells about the show’s inspiration.
”My Life is not a great book, in places it’s not even that good — but when you read it, you can’t help but feel you’re in the company, one on one, of the man himself. It’s his voice you hear on the page, for good and sometimes ill.” Jonathan Freedland reviews Bill Cinton’s autobiography.
The old sporting cliché that nice guys come second is about to be rigorously tested in the Democratic Republic of Congo on Sunday if Jean-Pierre Bemba is named as the man in that position when the country’s election results are announced. How nice he will be depends on whether he has another crack at the incumbent president, Joseph Kabila.
The Dutch government on Friday pledged €5-million (,4-million) in aid to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to improve health care and help people displaced by years of war return to their homes. About 1 200 people die each day in the DRC, Dutch Minister for Development Cooperation Agnes van Ardenne said in announcing the aid.
I cannot recall a time when disputes in the alliance over policy and politics have generated as much heat as they have in the past few weeks. No doubt uncertainties about succession play a part, as well as anticipation of serious debate over economic policy at the national policy conference later this year, but there is more to it than that.
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Southern African Development Community (SADC) member states need to contribute more to the regional body’s budget, outgoing SADC chairperson Festus Mogae said on Thursday. The SADC, as a regional organisation, still has difficulties implementing any of its targeted development programmes, he said at a summit meeting in Maseru.