An otherworldly, pale-faced man dressed in a frockcoat, sporting lipstick and fake-looking hair throws open his arms to welcome a group of children to his private dreamworld. No, it’s not Michael Jackson at the gates of Neverland, but Willy Wonka, as played by Johnny Depp in the film adaptation of Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, which opens on Friday in the United States.
The government should launch an immediate investigation into the police’s use of rubber bullets and tear gas against peaceful Treatment Action Campaign demonstrators in the Eastern Cape, Human Rights Watch said on Thursday. In a statement from New York, the organisation’s Jonathan Cohen called the police action a ”shocking irony”.
African National Congress heavyweights, including a newly elected mayor from the George district, Lulama Mvimbi, had their drinks snatched from their hands and were told to leave a well-known Plettenberg Bay pub this week because the pub owner did not ”like the attitude” of one of their friends.
In a move aimed at boosting its stagnating membership, the Congress of South African Trade Unions will shortly launch a new trade union for workers in the burgeoning informal economy. The decision was taken at a national workshop in February attended by Cosatu affiliates, former members of the defunct Self-Employed Women’s Union (Sewu), Sikhula Sonke and StreetNet.
The African National Congress has misled the nation on the Oilgate scandal. Documents in the possession of the Mail & Guardian make it clear that Imvume Management — the company that channelled R11-million in state oil money to the ANC before the 2004 election — was effectively a front for the ruling party.
An ambitious plan to reform the United Nations security council by expanding it from 15 members to 25 looks set to fail next week despite one of the most intense diplomatic lobbying exercises ever conducted, according to UN sources.
Suspended Scorpions deputy director Cornwell Tshavhungwa allegedly received a R500Â 000 bribe to subvert an investigation into alleged irregularities around a contract awarded by the Mpumalanga government to Rainbow Kwanda Communications. This has emerged from the 22-page charge sheet presented by the state to Magistrate Andries Lambrecht.
An intense row between parliamentary staff and management has been lent additional heat by the exclusion on "representivity" grounds of several coloured employees from the 50th anniversary celebrations of the Freedom Charter in Kliptown last month.
This is the story of how South Africa’s ruling party offered solidarity to Saddam Hussein in exchange for crude oil — and how state resources were used to help the party in this ambitious fundraising project. The story is important for it reveals not only how the party subordinated principle to profit, but also how it engaged in business through what was effectively a front company.
The events that led to the Oilgate saga: Iraq invades Kuwait; UN Security Council imposes comprehensive sanctions on Iraq, including lifeblood oil exports; UN approves Oil for Food programme to relieve civilian hardship — Iraq allowed to sell oil, with proceeds held in trust by UN and released only for approved humanitarian imports … See our timeline on how the ANC got involved …