Damn South Africa’s political and economic past. For, had our country developed along normal lines, Vuyo Jack, empowerment rating company Empowerdex’s CEO, would probably be better known as a musician or filmmaker. The man widely regarded as the de facto minister of black economic empowerment wishes he were doing something else.
Malawi has launched a comprehensive welfare plan to mitigate the impact of poverty and HIV/Aids on its estimated one million orphans. The National Plan of Action (NPA) for Orphans and Vulnerable Children (OVC), launched by President Bingu wa Mutharika last week, provides a common platform for the government, NGOs and donors to address the myriad problems facing children.
The 250-million-year-old Galesaurus on Annelise Crean’s workbench at the South African Museum is a superbly prepared fossil, its tracery of delicate off-white bones standing out from a matrix of fine grey sandstone. But where the dusty eye sockets should be, there is a surprise: the creature has protuberant, glistening and definitely not prehistoric brown eyeballs.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s annual make-up spend differs, it seems, according to what paper you look at. I read that since 2003 it was £1 000, plus £791,20 on make-up artists. My boyfriend came up with the rather more outlandish figure of two grand per press conference; he must have misunderstood.
”Very good discussions — constructive discussions.” Anna Tibaijuka’s comments to journalists following her meeting with President Robert Mugabe sounded like the standard diplomatic brush-off. But anyone who had hoped the UN secretary general’s special envoy to Zimbabwe was about to tiptoe over the matter of housing demolitions would have been disappointed when her report on the visit was published a few weeks later.
Drowned out by admirable but deafening calls for debt relief and an end to poverty, masked by the critical debate on climate change, and buried beneath news of the London bombs, the G8 leaders recently took the first steps towards establishing a global threat identification and warning system designed to ensure that we are never again caught napping by extreme geophysical hazards.
German sports good group Adidas-Salomon laid down a challenge to United States giant Nike by announcing on Wednesday that it is to pay €3,1-billion (,8-billion) to buy American rival Reebok. The company hopes to complete the Reebok deal in the first half of next year.
An Air France passenger jet skidded off the end of the runway and burst into flames after landing in a thunderstorm at Toronto’s Pearson International airport on Tuesday, media reports said. There were up to 200 passengers on the jet on the Paris-Toronto flight, according to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and other media.
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