No image available
/ 29 October 2004
A dramatic series of reforms aimed at transforming the funding of the welfare system is being debated in the government, with Minister of Finance Trevor Manuel suggesting for the first time that a major new tier of mandatory private retirement and health benefits should be developed. "As formal employment grows, South Africa will need to strengthen its ‘second pillar’ of contributory social insurance arrangements."
No image available
/ 29 October 2004
If the supporters of Geoff Budlender, director of the Legal Resources Centre, left the Judicial Service Commission (JSC) hearings in Cape Town this week feeling their candidate had been harshly treated, perhaps they should meet Judge John Motata and advocate Majake Mabesele.
No image available
/ 29 October 2004
Wealthy Johannesburg suburbs won the right to seal themselves off against crime on Thursday, despite claims that this marks a return to the no-go areas of the apartheid era. The city council approved requests from dozens of communities to close their roads with barriers staffed by private guards to monitor and control access.
No image available
/ 29 October 2004
Deputy President Jacob Zuma continuously ran up huge debts while knowing he could not afford to pay for his lifestyle, the Durban High Court heard on Thursday. Although Zuma is not on trial, most of the day was devoted to his financial affairs and the role played by his so-called financial adviser, fraud and corruption accused Schabir Shaik.
No image available
/ 29 October 2004
About 100 000 Iraqi civilians — half of them women and children — have died in Iraq since the invasion, mostly as a result of airstrikes by coalition forces, according to the first reliable study of the death toll from Iraqi and United States public health experts.
No image available
/ 29 October 2004
Yasser Arafat flew to Paris on Friday morning for emergency medical treatment, leaving for the first time in more than two years the battered Ramallah compound in which Israel has confined him. Doctors from four Arab countries were on Thursday unable to pinpoint what had caused the serious deterioration in the health of the 75-year-old Palestinian leader, amid growing speculation he is suffering from leukaemia.
No image available
/ 29 October 2004
The dam in question is brown and long, squeezed in as an affront by water nymphs between desiccated farmlands and the ruddy oven walls of the Cedarberg mountains to the east. Last weekend it was three-quarters full, but the sun-crushed bluegums on the waterline haven’t been dampened in years, and the grass, optimistically spreading across the mud flats, is already yellowing. But at least for now the dam has a domesticated air about it.
No image available
/ 29 October 2004
<img src="http://www.mg.co.za/ContentImages/140506/shaik_icon_new.gif" align=left>Secret documents seized by the Scorpions during their investigation of the arms deal — revealed for the first time at the Schabir Shaik trial — give a remarkable insight into the intense lobbying that went on to secure contracts. Newly evident is the role played by President Thabo Mbeki — then deputy president and chair of the Cabinet committee that oversaw the arms acquisition process.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?cg=BreakingNews-National&ao=124569">How Zuma ran up massive debts</a>
No image available
/ 29 October 2004
The most alarming thing about the Schabir Shaik trial in Durban is that the revelations being made by various witnesses seem unsurprising. As each new narration unfolds we learn of chicanery, double-dealing, hustles, swindles, lies. And we do little more than shrug. If these things were even 10% true, we should be outraged.
No image available
/ 29 October 2004
<img src="http://www.mg.co.za/ContentImages/140248/USA2.GIF" align=left>The United States presidential election is often described as 50 state elections. The right of states to make their own rules for the way they want to run elections — from ballot design to the requirements for registering as a voter — are honoured in this federal system. But more than half of Americans want to abandon the country’s outdated electoral college system.