The African Christian Democratic Party is shocked by suggestions from the tripartite alliance that the state must fund axed deputy president Jacob Zuma’s legal costs for his corruption case. The alliance urged Zuma’s lawyer on Thursday to ask the state to fund his legal costs.
Australia is about to sever a yet another historical link with Britain. It will abandon Greenwich Mean Time and adopt a new national standard next week, based on the atomic clock. ”Really, GMT is just a little bit outmoded,” said Richard Britain of Australia’s National Measurement Institute.
Forget the sweet scent of roses — Melbourne’s Royal Botanic Gardens was suffused with an unusual stench on Friday, as the gardens’ foul-smelling tongue orchid flowered for the second time in 30 years. The Papua New Guinea native orchid is one of a several plants with flowers that smell like rotting meat to attract flies, which help its pollination.
Texas is preparing to execute the first black woman in the state since the American civil war — drawing protests from her supporters and opponents of the United States death penalty. Frances Newton (40) was convicted of murdering her husband and two children in 1987 for a 000 insurance payout.
The urge of people in the developing world to heap scorn and spleen upon those in the developed is a curious one. In fact, to come across a young man living in a house made of goat dysentery, who spends his days in quivering prayer to a vengeful god (whose divine bipolar disorder ordains everything from thunderstorms to sexually transmitted diseases).
I cannot hope to contribute in any meaningful sense to the roars and squeals of disparagement already heaped on poor Zwelinzima Vavi’s head; payback with interest for the blunt demands he issued recently on behalf of Congress of Stupendously Asinine Trade Unionists (Cosatu).
Students at the University of the Witwatersrand have had enough of parties who are out of touch with their political needs. At the recent student representative council elections, the African National Congress Youth League/South African Students’ Congress alliance lost all 15 seats it won in a clean sweep last year.
To some, the introduction of basic income grants (BIG) in South Africa is an unimaginable luxury — and the idea of implementing BIG in other, poorer African states simply laughable. Nonetheless, the South African campaign for BIG, which began four years ago, appears to be resonating elsewhere in the region.
As police officer Simangaliso Patrick Simelane went on trial this week over the alleged torture last year of four Landless People’s Movement activists, questions remained about the identity of others involved in the incident and why the alleged victims were never given the opportunity to identify the assailants at an identity parade.
The Limpopo education department can rebuild a Thabazimbi farm school that was mysteriously burnt down in July, the Pretoria High Court ruled recently. This comes after Johan Pienaar, the farmer on whose land the school stood, refused to have it rebuilt or to have temporary classrooms erected on his property.