Comedian John Cleese owes a lot to the animal kingdom after building a career around the surreal Monty Python and achieving mainstream movie success with A Fish Called Wanda — now he’s decided to return the favour. The lanky Briton said on Friday that he had become a passionate supporter of zoological gardens in recent years and wanted to help their conservation work.
The circumcision season death toll in the Eastern Cape has risen to 22 with the news that a would-be initiate had apparently hanged himself at Bholothwa in the Queenstown area. Provincial health department spokesperson Sizwe Kupelo said on Thursday that Mzwanele Diniso (24) was found hanging from a tree on New Year’s Day after going missing from the illegal initiation school he was attending.
Documents released to the Mail & Guardian by the Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria contradict recent loveLife claims that its funding was cut primarily because of United States-led right-wing ideology and pressure from ”progressives” critical of the South African government.
Iran is expected to resume testing machinery next week that can be used to make weapons-grade uranium in a move that appears calculated to scupper the prospects of a settlement of its nuclear dispute with the West. Senior Iranian officials on Thursday snubbed Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, by failing to show up at a scheduled meeting in Vienna.
A hospital official said early on Friday that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon remains in serious condition and will be in a medically induced coma the immediate future after a massive stroke, as Israelis and Palestinians grappled with the likelihood that the man who dominated politics in the region for decades would never return to power.
Some of the South Africa’s biggest companies and best-known brands find themselves at odds with the government as it pushes ahead with economic reforms designed to boost growth through increasing efficiency and competition. Both South African and multinational companies have felt the chillier wind blowing from Pretoria.
The African National Congress launches its local government election campaign this weekend in Cape Town, the one metropolitan area it stands a real chance of losing. And it is common cause that the war over the city’s demographically complex terrain will be fought for voter turnout. Both the ANC and the DA are focusing on getting supporters to the polling stations on March 1.
"Soccer runs in our family’s veins," says proud dad Ozzie Liebestein. And sometimes outside his family’s veins, too, by the looks of things: five minutes into the interview the nasty gash to his forehead is still oozing. Most fathers might have had a few sharp words to say to their sons had they too been felled by a roundhouse kick to the mandible, but Ozzie will hear none of it.
South African football bosses have unanimously committed themselves to keeping unwelcome attitudes and influences out of the local game. "Victrocentrism" — the disturbing desire to win matches — has been identified as a major threat to local football.
Consternation, alarm mixed with quickly suppressed delight, has arisen in African National Congress ranks at the announcement that Minister of Environment, Tourism and Political Hypocrisy, Marthinus van Schalkwyk, is to enter the race for the presidency of South Africa.