South Africa’s transition to democracy over the past decade has proved a disaster for the country’s poor, Congress of South African Trade Unions Western Cape secretary Tony Ehrenreich said on Monday. Speaking in Cape Town’s City Hall at the launch of a grassroots coalition to tackle poverty in the province, he harshly criticised the government’s failure to stem job losses.
South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) chairperson Jody Kollapen expressed concern on Monday at the number of permanent boom gates approved for Johannesburg by its metro council. ”Once granted, boom areas become closed areas because they can’t be monitored,” he cautioned.
As Israeli forces removed residents from the last Jewish settlement still to be cleared in the Gaza Strip on Monday, Israel’s Prime Minister Ariel Sharon sought to win back support from the Israeli right by promising continued expansion of Israel’s West Bank colonies and no more unilateral pullouts.
With a combined age of 245 and multimillion-pound fortunes to match, the Rolling Stones could be forgiven for quietly hanging up their guitars. But instead the original bad boys of rock’n’roll kicked off their latest world tour in front of a sell-out crowd at Boston’s Fenway Park on Sunday with a concert so loud it had policemen patrolling outside with sound meters.
In a briefing to government and the media at its headquarters in Auckland Park today, the SABC announced a R240,3-million net profit for the 2004/2005 financial year.
"To find a peaceful and democratic solution to Zimbabwe’s problems the African Union and the Southern African Development Community need to develop an informed, honest and objective consensus as to its origins and avoid public pronouncements that unwittingly distort the facts," writes Movement for Democratic Change’s secretary for finance and economics, Tendai Biti.
It has been estimated that economic losses caused by invasive alien species account for almost 5% of the world’s combined gross national product, or some US$1,4-trillion a year. This situation is expected to worsen rapidly, with increased movement of species around the globe through trade, transport, travel and tourism.
Africa must urgently boost investments in aquaculture to fight hunger as natural fish stocks on the continent and elsewhere decline, scientists say. Africa is the only region in the world where the per capita fish consumption is dropping, placing an estimated 200-million Africans who depend on fish as a main part of their diet at risk of malnutrition.
One of the quietest revolutions to have taken place in post-apartheid South Africa occured at a nondescript, isolated building in Gauteng’s Midrand. The Development Bank of Southern Africa, under the stewardship of CEO Mandla Gantsho, has done more than just change the way it does business.
Australia is planning its biggest global recruitment drive since the ”£10 pom” campaign of the 1950s by trying to lure 20 000 skilled workers to the country with promises of shorter hours, a better climate and a lower cost of living. The government says there are shortages in many areas and that recruiting from abroad is the only way of shoring up key industries.