Think of every building, house, shack and pondok in the country. Now think of the same buildings, houses, shacks and pondoks, but each with a solar heater on the roof. It seems an impossible dream, yet, experts say, every household could have had a free solar power unit on its roof if public money had been spent on solar rather than nuclear power.
The good news is that excessively high international bandwidth prices in Africa, caused by the monopolisation of the SAT-3 undersea cable, are to be challenged by the establishment of a new submarine cable on the east coast of Africa. The 9Â 900km EASSy cable is set to run from Port Sudan in the north to Durban, and will complete the fibre loop surrounding Africa.
Numbed by crime, South Africa goes about its business as police make inroads into the daily toll of hijackings, robberies and murders at such snail’s pace that citizens feel no safer. We have come to view violent crime as a part of life. Our national conversation runs as follows: "Your house was broken into — so was mine."
In what is likely to be the only instance in which one uses such a phrase, it turns out that Dan Brown is part of a grand literary tradition. In the ongoing court case involving allegations that Brown stole most of his ideas for The Da Vinci Code from another book, the most memorable revelation so far has been that Brown’s wife, Blythe, has been doing much of his work for him.
Days before Israel’s military assault on Jericho prison it warned Britain and the United States that it would seize Palestinians held there under an international agreement for killing an Israeli Cabinet minister if the two countries withdrew their monitors. Dov Weisglass, one of the Israeli prime minister’s advisers, told Britain and the US that it would be better for international supervision at the prison to continue.
Reigning Commonwealth champions New Zealand set up a mouth-watering semifinal against hosts Australia at the Games rugby union sevens tournament in Melbourne on Friday. New Zealand, champions in Kuala Lumpur in 1998 and Manchester in 2002, coasted to a 24-0 win over Canada, while Australia overcame a doughty South African side 20-14.
In the latest power play in the divided Zimbabwean opposition Movement for Democratic Change, the Morgan Tsvangirai faction has hand-delivered letters to estranged office bearers Gibson Sibanda and Welshman Ncube, inviting them to attend the party’s congress at the weekend. Paul Themba-Nyathi, a spokesperson for the pro-Senate MDC faction, however, dismissed the Tsvangirai overture as a ”hoax”.
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, his eyes fixed on his legacy, has engaged President Thabo Mbeki to broker ”dialogue” with Britain that could end hostilities with its former colony. Mugabe accuses his arch-nemesis, the British Prime Minister Tony Blair, of being the major driver of mobilising international opposition to his rule.
As famine continues to ravage parts of Kenya, a non-governmental organisation is urging authorities to reduce the cost of basic food stuffs, particularly maize flour — the staple food. A survey by the group, Bunge la Mwananchi, has indicated that while food is for sale in affected areas, it is too expensive for the people living there.
Kenya’s attorney general recently signalled his willingness to tackle the country’s biggest corruption scandal by charging five men, including the former governor of the central bank, with fraud. The ”Goldenberg” scandal was made public 14 years ago and cost Kenyan taxpayers the equivalent of -million.