The Mail & Guardian sent detailed questions to Sandi Majali and Imvume; Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka and her former Minerals and Energy Department; the ANC, Kgalema Motlanthe and Mendi Msimang; and the Strategic Fuel Fund Association (SFF), and Riaz Jawoodeen, the former SFF director.
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe on Thursday said his government should have emphasised the ”reconstruction aspect” of a controversial programme of shack demolitions that human rights groups say has left at least 300Â 000 people homeless.
Little wonder general manager Stanley ”Screamer” Tshabalala was cooing like a dove on Thursday after it was confirmed Bafana Bafana will play Panama in the quarterfinals of the Concacaf Gold Cup tournament at Houston’s ultra-modern Reliant Stadium on Sunday.
I am enraged at the utter crassness, crudity and weapons-grade stupidity of whatever organisation now manufactures and sells the almost immortal game of Scrabble. I went to buy a new Scrabble set the other day. The box was marked Original Scrabble and, like a fool, I took that on trust.
A smiling Eddie Jones is Napoleoning up and down a rugby pitch at this very moment with Jake White’s jewels in the left side pocket of his tracksuit top. And he is squeezing them very, very hard. Jones has good reason to be basking in this savoury glow of satisfaction.
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.
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.
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”.
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 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.