After being reviled for more than 2 000 years as the embodiment of treachery, Judas Iscariot’s side of the story was finally published on Thursday. Thanks to a newly discovered gospel in Judas’s name, we now know what his excuse was: Jesus made me do it.
Beijing plans to make full use of its authoritarian powers during the Olympics in 2008 by banning more than two million cars to ensure that one of the world’s most polluted cities will have clear skies for at least the two weeks of the games. Billions of dollars are being spent on Olympic venues, new roads and the world’s biggest airport terminal.
The environment group Greenpeace on Thursday launched a campaign against McDonald’s, accusing the United States restaurant chain of abetting the destruction of the Brazilian rainforest by buying meat raised from Amazonian soya. Greenpeace protestors staged colourful but peaceful demonstrations at several McDonald’s restaurants in Britain and Germany.
A ruling to dismiss the Mangaung municipality’s top two officials last Friday has highlighted how a group of senior councillors and officials ran an "organised corruption syndicate" that allegedly looted tens of millions of rands from the local authority. The Mangaung Local Municipality ranks among the country’s top 10 biggest councils, with a budget of R1,5-billion.
"The intention of Helen Zille, Cape Town’s new executive mayor, to dismiss African National Congress-aligned city manager Wallace Mgoqi will come as no surprise to anyone who has been observing the soap opera that constitutes local politics in the city," writes Kevin Allan and Karen Heese.
The Department of Trade and Industry (dti) had such fun harmonising tariffs it decided to harmonise its call-centre message and produce a company song for the benefit of callers-in. "When I hear the song, I just think, someone please save me and answer the phone on the other side," DJ Naked, a well-known hip-hop DJ, told the <i>Mail & Guardian</i>.
Investec has scored handsomely on its R460-million loan to troubled mining group JCI, once the flagship in the mining empire of Brett Kebble. Investec charges prime rates of interest on this loan, but this pales alongside the nearly R300-million "raising fee" it stands to make out of JCI for keeping the troubled mining group out of the hands of liquidators.
Residents of Limpopo terrorised by a pride of escapee lions this week got off relatively lightly compared with villagers living in neighbouring Mozambique and Tanzania, where lions often turn into man-hunters. In 18 months in just one of the country’s 10 provinces at least 70 people were eaten by lions.
The charge sheet implicating five businessmen in a R213-million pension-fund fraud details an elaborate scheme aimed at profiteering from surplus money generated by the funds. Four businessmen were arrested last month in a criminal case relating to that being brought against Australian Peter Ghavalas, who was arrested in September last year.
While the government has been putting a lot of energy into tackling import parity pricing as part of its broad-based attack on excessive pricing, there is one major industry in the country — sugar — that continues to use import parity as one of its cornerstones. The industry is finally starting to feel the winds of change … or are they just breezes?