Israeli forces have demolished the homes of hundreds of Palestinians, bulldozed swaths of agricultural land and destroyed infrastructure in their bloodiest assault on the Gaza Strip in years. More than 70 people have died in Operation Days of Penitence, launched in northern Gaza six days ago after a Hamas rocket attack killed two Israeli children.
President Thabo Mbeki has made a withering attack on commentators who argue that violent crime is out of control in South Africa, calling them white racists who want the country to fail. He said crime was falling but some journalists distorted reality by depicting black people as ”barbaric savages” who liked to rape and kill.
There’s modest growth in the broadsheets, but the really big circulation gains in local weekly newspapers are coming from the tabloids. Andy Davis unravels a segment that mirrors the international trends.
Throughout the developing world appropriate microfinance has helped address the poverty and vulnerability of millions of poor households in the informal sector. The United Nations has declared 2005 the Year of Microcredit. With a few exceptions, however, South Africa lacks the sort of poverty-oriented microfinance institutions common in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Why is this?
The week before last, Dr Anban Pillay made certain statements about pharmacists and pricing regulations ("Pills without frills"). The Department of Health is now in the unenviable position of having to deal with the aftermath of introducing a fee that, in the words of Judge Jeanette Traverso, appears to be a "thumbsuck". Lorraine Osman exercises her right to reply.
Barclays Bank’s potential purchase of a controlling stake in Absa puts into perspective parochial talk of ”big empowerment deals”. The R20-billion bandied about as the price is almost the total spent on black economic empowerment (BEE) deals in 2003. That a foreign bank wants to put such serious money into a South African operation supports the view that BEE does not necessarily deter foreign direct investment.
Israeli troops pressed on with their offensive in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday as the United Nations was set to vote on a resolution calling for a halt to the onslaught that has killed almost 80 Palestinians. The death toll mounted further as a Palestinian gunmen was killed by an Israeli tank shell fired at the Jabaliya refugee camp.
50 000 trapped by Israeli assault
World champion Australia begins the first of a four-Test battle on Wednesday to end a 35-year drought, but the battlefield in India is a dry, grass-less pitch that threatens to crack quickly and suit the hosts better. ”It’s pretty dry,” both the Australians and the Indians said after a preliminary inspection of the pitch early this week. But the Indians were delighted as it will help their spinners get the ball turning big and early.
”Oh, we’re post-gay” — that was a reported comment in the wake of the recent lesbian and gay Pride parade, from a couple who didn’t attend. It was doubtless said light-heartedly, and may have expressed no more than a lack of any desire to go parading. But ”post-gay” is also a new addition to the heap of slippery terms people use to define their sexualities.
Four years after Zimbabwe’s land reform campaign turned violent, South Africa and Namibia are facing the same conundrum, struggling to redress imbalances from British and German colonial rule. As in Zimbabwe, the vast majority of land in South Africa and Namibia is owned by white farmers, descendants of settlers who under colonial rule were given choice land.