<b>CD OF THE WEEK</b>: Riaan Wolmarans reviews Taliep Petersen’s latest offering, <i>Deur Dik en Dun</i>, as well as other new releases on the shelf.
It costs six to seven times to build a new fossil-fuel power station compared to the average cost of existing power station per megawatt of capacity, says Eskom’s annual report released last week. "Present electricity prices are un-sustainably low. Prices are based on Eskom’s low depreciated asset base, valued at historical net book values," the report says.
Roman Abramovich’s life appears tailor-made for a Robert Ludlum novel. One of the new breed of Russian oligarchs and the owner of England’s Chelsea Football Club, Abramovich is a billionaire many times over. South Africa will soon be adding to his asset base, as one of his companies, Evraz, will be taking over Anglo American’s 79% stake in Highveld Steel & Vanadium.
Chad has signed a precedent-setting agreement with the World Bank that guarantees 70% of its oil revenues will be spent on poverty alleviation projects. Civil society hopes this will allow Chad to escape from the "paradox of plenty", common in oil-producing nations, in which the majority of the impoverished population does not benefit from oil wealth.
With just over a week to go to the Democratic Republic of Congo’s (DRC) first democratic vote since independence, fears of possible chaos have increased after four people were killed last week at an election rally in the country’s Nord Kivu province. It follows another incident where seven people were killed at another opposition rally, also in the north-east of the country earlier in the week.
As the 2006 G8 Summit wound up this week, the distance between the promises of the world’s most powerful leaders and their performance on fighting poverty in Africa has never been so vast. The meeting in St Petersburg was dominated by discussions on energy, trade and the rapidly spiralling violence between Hizbullah and Israel.
As tens of thousands of foreigners and Lebanese fled the country by air, sea and land this week, Prime Minister Fouad Siniora lashed out at Israel, saying it was "opening the gates of hell and madness" on his country. In a BBC interview, he urged Hizbullah to release two captured Israeli soldiers, but said Israel’s response to the crisis had been disproportionate.
<i>Pity the Nation</i>. The title of veteran Middle East reporter Robert Fisk’s seminal 1990 book, subtitled <i>Lebanon at War</i>, is resonant again. After a difficult period of reconstruction — having finally attracted a steady flow of export business and tourism, and having rebuilt its infrastructure and social cohesion — Lebanon once again looks into the abyss.
For 16 years Rukhsana Ali managed to hide her husband Wajid’s heroin addiction from their son and daughter, all the while ignoring her family’s repeated pleas to leave him. It paid off when Wajid kicked the habit last year, one of a growing number of drug users in Pakistan saved by determined spouses who resist social pressures and potential ostracism by their relatives.
The latest Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip, in which some of the businesses that help keep the impoverished area afloat were destroyed, appears to be alienating even the most moderate of Palestinians. In the Maghazi refugee camp, the debris of broken sewing machines crunches under the feet of Ahmad Abdel Jawad. Before his clothes factory was demolished, he sold all of his production to customers in Israel.