Japan is likely to provoke the biggest diplomatic clash over whale hunting for years on Friday when it proposes doubling the number it is allowed to kill for ”scientific research”. Japanese officials refused to discuss details ahead of the opening on Friday of a meeting of the International Whaling Commission in Ulsan, South Korea.
An Indonesian court on Friday convicted an Australian beauty school student of smuggling marijuana into the tourist island of Bali and sentenced her to 20 years in prison. Schapelle Corby (27) who insists she is innocent and that the drugs were planted in her luggage, fought back tears as the verdict was announced.
An important new land study warns the government against setting up poor black South Africans for failure in the farming sector. The report, released by the Johannesburg-based Centre for Development and Enterprise, says the hard truth is that agriculture offers few opportunities for addressing unemployment, poverty or inequality on a significant scale, and provides an economic future for fewer and fewer people.
The African National Congress’s Western Cape conference has been postponed for the sixth time in five months, turning a spotlight on the party’s provincial secretary, Mcebisi Skwatsha. Skwatsha, criticised for organisational failures amid acrimonious jockeying for party leadership posts, rejected the charge that he lacks administrative ability.
Late on a recent Monday evening pay-TV viewers enjoyed a spectacular display of M-Net-style puritanism. It took place during an hour-long show in the HBO comedy series. This was a monologue by the American satirist, Bill Maher. As always, Maher was superb, showing that true, abrasive satire can still flourish in a world steadily being eroded of humour.
President Thabo Mbeki’s questioning of employment statistics is not in any way denialism, but rather an "explanation-seeking necessary interrogation", says Haroon Bhorat, director of the Development Policy Research Unit at the University of Cape Town. More importantly, as Mbeki concedes, the questioning should not distract from the serious lack of formal, quality employment.
Statistics South Africa is facing a crisis, in the short term at least, in its attempt to improve the quality of its output. This is according to Dr Hillary Southall, chairperson of the Statistics Council. Southall describes the agency as being "woefully short of capacity" and says that if it is left unattended it will just "fall apart".
The bail-out of embattled clothing-maker Rex Trueform was stitched up this week: while the legendary factory will survive, over three-quarters of its workers are likely to get the chop. In addition, the last-ditch deal rests on the company’s commitment to stock its retail outlets with garments from the factory. Rex Trueform owns the Salt River, Cape Town, factory plant where 1 000 jobs are currently at risk.
The Durban Institute of Technology pioneered the radical transformation of higher education by venturing out as the first merger in higher education under the democratic dispensation. It is a highly contested terrain. It is against this background that I take issue with Sam Sole’s loose assertion that, "Merged KZN technikons ‘remain deeply divided’".
Minister of Water Affairs and Forestry Buyelwa Sonjica has a tricky job. She needs to manage the implementation of the 1998 water Act, and try to ensure that black farmers gain access to water resources without cutting into the productivity of commercial farms. All of this work overlaps the responsibilities of other Cabinet portfolios, but Sonjica manages almost no implementation budget.