Why are we one of the most expensive countries on Earth for internet access? Even President Thabo Mbeki pointed out as far back as February in his State of the Nation address that the charges by Telkom are "unacceptable". Ian Fraser takes a look at the Telkom monopoly, as well as the "thug logic of the local cellphone companies".
Five years into the crisis, it is evident that Pretoria and Africa’s position on Zimbabwe cannot be called quiet diplomacy. And so the question should not be what African leaders should be doing about Zimbabwe, but what the effect is of what Pretoria and other African powers are already doing in relation to Zimbabwe?
The remaining two crew members on board the yacht Mystic Lady were brought safely to Port St Francis in the Eastern Cape on Tuesday night, the National Sea Rescue Institute (NSRI) said. The two crew members were stranded off the coast near Port Elizabeth on Tuesday morning after a third crew member fell overboard.
My French teacher was 50, short and wore thick glasses. He had a shiny pate, suits to match and smelled so strongly of garlic that kids would swoon when he leaned over to correct a subjunctive. The weakness in my own knees was something different. I was 13 and totally smitten.
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Murderer Donovan Moodley sat emotionless when details of Leigh Matthews’s autopsy report was heard in the Johannesburg High Court on Tuesday. Pathologist Hendrik Scholtz took the court through a graphic description of findings that led him to cast doubt on Moodley’s claim that he killed Matthews at the spot where her body was found.
At least 57 people were killed on Tuesday in one of the worst floods and landslides in the western Indian states of Maharashtra and Goa, news reports said. With the deaths, the toll from heavy monsoon rains in India since the end of June has touched 348. More than two million people have been displaced in nearly a dozen states.
Friendship and camaraderie, not self-interest, were behind payments by Durban businessman Schabir Shaik to former deputy president Jacob Zuma, the Durban High Court heard on Tuesday. Shaik is asking the court for leave to appeal against his conviction on two counts of corruption and one of fraud.
Discovery blasted off on Tuesday for the first United States space-shuttle mission since the Columbia disaster in February 2003, which forced the US to rethink its space programme completely. Thirteen days after a previous attempt was called off, Discovery lifted off into clear blue skies.
Zimbabwe has resumed destroying homes, witnesses said on Tuesday, a day after United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan said he plans to visit the country to discuss the demolition campaign. Meanwhile, South African opposition Democratic Alliance leader Tony Leon has launched his party’s Stop the Mugabe Loan Campaign.