Billions of dollars of reconstruction contracts awarded in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina are being investigated amid concerns of cronyism and abuse. More than 80% of the ,5Â -billion in contracts signed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency were awarded without bidding or with only limited competition.
The political administration of the country’s nine provinces will cost the taxpayer R16-billion by the end of this financial year, about 8% of the total transfer from national government. Provincial ministers, their bodyguards and private secretaries will soak up R500-million in remuneration alone.
The flood of new titles into the magazine space may well be filling what appear to our biggest publishers to be obvious gaps. These guys don’t skimp on research and they’re past masters at the art of the compelling media argument.
Naspers is clearly winning the online war. Johnnic appears to have fallen behind. And where is the SABC? Matthew Buckland reports.
Pouring concrete over an arms dump of Kalashnikovs hidden in a bog is one thing, laying to rest ingrained unionist suspicions is another. As the Ulster Unionist leader Reg Empey acknowledged recently, everyone knows General de Chastelain won’t get every single republican gun and it would be easy for the Provos to go out and restock their arsenal tomorrow.
On October 11, Liberians will have another opportunity, the second in eight years, to elect a government to steer their country back on the road of reconstruction after more than a decade of conflict. The key difference is that, for once, voters will not be directly hounded by the image nor haunted by the memory of a dominant strongman seeking their votes.
After 19 years without a working government, Somalia would walk any award for longevity on a knife-edge. Equally, Somaliland, its northern neighbour on the Horn of Africa, must be a contender for the patience prize. This country, which rose from the ruins of dictator Siad Barre’s genocidal attempt to destroy it remains unrecognised by the international community.
Human rights watchdog Amnesty International has expressed concern over mounting political and ethnic tensions in the North Kivu province of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), warning that this might spark renewed conflict in the country. In a report issued recently, the group says additional fighting could undermine the DRC’s uncertain peace process
Wars give noble reasons for why they occur: international security, national dignity, democracy, freedom, order, the mandate of Civilisation, or the will of God. Not one has the honesty to confess: I kill to steal. No fewer than three million civilians died in the Congo during the four-year war that has been on hold since the end of 2002.
Either Democratic Alliance deputy leader Joe Seremane is a new South African who refuses to acknowledge race, or else he is an archetypical victim of apartheid crying out for sessions on black consciousness. Seremane projects himself as one completely exhausted by the politics of race.