New Zealand is not for sale, despite somebody in neighbouring Australia trying to offload the nation of four million to the highest online bidder. With a starting offer of just one cent, brisk bidding for the prime chunk of South Pacific real estate quickly boosted the price to Aus 000 before eBay pulled the plug on the auction this week.
Christopher Columbus, who died in the northern Spanish city of Valladolid 500 years ago, ended his days alone and bitter, a fate shared by many other great explorers. Spain’s Conquistadors also came to a sticky end against the backdrop of violence and internecine rivalry which thrived in the 16th century, during the brutal conquest and colonisation of Latin America.
Twenty-one people appeared in court in southern Zimbabwe after the discovery of a flourishing marijuana plantation, reports said on Thursday. The 21 are part of a group of 29 arrested and charged under Zimbabwe’s Dangerous Drugs Act, said the state-controlled Herald newspaper.
Businessman Patrice Motsepe has firmly rejected speculation that he might serve on the board of the new South African Football Association (Safa) commercial wing. The independent body, once it is up and running, will be run by businesspeople, the Premier Soccer League and Safa officials.
Zimbabwe’s financial sector is facing a fresh crisis amid reports that the five biggest banks are sitting on costly Treasury bill portfolios that could wipe out their accumulated capital, it was established this week. Sources indicate that the banks are haemorrhaging from a raft of Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe policies that could precipitate bank failures.
During the process of being severely stuffed around (no weak jokes, please) in my recent day-to-day dealings, I’ve found a rather weird exponential scale at work: the hidden tenets of South African commerce.
A Johannesburg teenager who hanged herself this week filmed her own suicide, media reports said on Friday. The report said the 15-year-old girl of Emmarentia used a dog leash to hang herself from a security gate on Wednesday afternoon while her mother was at home.
Jacob Zuma’s political future rests with the way about 3 000 delegates at next year’s ANC conference will vote for the party’s leadership. The Mail & Guardian‘s Monako Dibetle, Percy Zvomuya and Niren Tolsi spoke to members of the party and its affiliates.
United States President George Bush tried desperately on Thursday to defuse the news that the three biggest telephone firms in the US provided the National Security Agency with the records of billions of calls made by Americans. ”We are not mining or trawling through the personal lives of millions of innocent Americans,” said Bush.
<a href="http://www.mg.co.za/specialreport.aspx?area=zuma_report"><img src="http://www.mg.co.za/ContentImages/243078/zuma.jpg" align=left border=0></a>Jacob Zuma’s official diary for the year 2000, when he is alleged to have met Schabir Shaik and French arms dealer Alain Thetard to request a bribe, was discovered during the Scorpions raid on Zuma’s office at the Union Buildings in August last year.