The official opposition Democratic Alliance has been defeated in Vanderbiljpark — until now regarded as a safe seat — where it put up a ”test case” black candidate in a overwhelmingly white municipal ward. The seat — fought in a by-election on Wednesday — was won by Cobus Cato of the conservative Freedom Front Plus.
Zimbabwean intelligence agencies are ”monitoring” cash flows to some foreign embassies in the country. According to a newspaper report, the monitoring is to identify diplomatic missions suspected of funding the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). ”No money is given to us by foreigners,” the MDC said.
British govt doesn’t support MDC
Plans to establish a Great Limpopo Transfrontier Area — almost trebling the area of land currently protected by the transfrontier park of the same name — are moving ahead, Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism Marthinus van Schalkwyk said on Thursday. He was speaking at the launch of this year’s National Tourism Month.
The Gauteng Taxi Council on Thursday embarked on a march around Johannesburg demanding the Gauteng government recognise its members and deal with problems facing the industry. In seven days the organisation plans a countrywide march if the provincial government does not meet certain demands.
The United Nations is trying to transform one of the most politically unstable countries in Africa, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), into a multiparty democracy with elections scheduled for 2005. But to do so, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan wants to more than double the number of UN peacekeepers in the DRC.
British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw has dismissed claims that his government supported the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), the main opposition party in Zimbabwe. Straw said a total of 45-million pounds (about R539-million) was available to fund land reform in Zimbabwe should a solution be found to the political and economic crisis in that country.
The shallow and warm waters off a remote port on the Sainte-Mairie island are alive with the sound of music — the eerie wailing of hundreds of humpback whales, who escape the rigours of the Antarctic winter and come here every year to breed and croon.
Rebellious old habits die hard in the northwestern Swiss valley of Val-de-Travers, where the alcoholic drink absinthe, nicknamed the ”green fairy”, is about to become legal again. The lush, forested valley of 12 000 people in the Jura hills near the French border claims to have been the birthplace of absinthe, which was said to make one blind or mad when prohibition took hold in 1908.
The minister of health has played down the target of rolling out anti-retroviral treatment for HIV victims by the end of the year — saying most South Africans prefer to consult traditional healers first before going to a Western health facility. The government had set itself a target of treating 53 000 Aids patients this year.
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu), which has been meeting with African National Congress representatives in Cape Town, says it virulently opposes relaxation of exchange controls — and "speed bumps" should be put in place to protect the economy.