A devastating report on the state of South Africa’s Road Accident Fund (RAF), which shows that there is no indication that the deteriorating trend of the accumulated deficit will subside, has been tabled in Parliament. The RAF’s accumulated deficit on March 31 2003 was R23,026-billion, compared with R16,6-billion on March 31 2002.
Botswana, with the highest per-capita rate of HIV infection in world, is struggling to cope with the demand for treatment, despite pouring much of its diamond wealth into the battle against the disease. “We are faced with an ever-worsening, perpetual, insatiable demand,” said Ernest Darkoh, operations manager for Botswana’s anti-retroviral drugs programme.
In recent years, eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has become a byword for violence and human rights abuse. Now, inhabitants of Butembo in the North Kivu province are seeking renown for something else: Entrepreneurial initiative. Tired of waiting for government to meet their energy needs, businesspeople from Butembo have joined forces to build a hydroelectric dam.
As the South African government is finally coming to understand, President Robert Mugabe and his ministers make pledges and assurances they have no intention of honouring. Mugabe’s stance on the independent media must be seen in the same light. And now Mugabe’s state has turned its guns on the <i>Mail & Guardian</i>.
Seven seconds. That may not seem much. But in the three-week Tour de France, the advantage Lance Armstrong gained over two rivals on Wednesday by sprinting at the finish of the first mountain stage could be an important step toward the Texan’s hoped-for record sixth crown.
Britain’s Greg Rusedski, Germany’s Nicolas Kiefer and Cyril Saulnier of France advanced to the quarterfinals of the Mercedes-Benz Cup on Wednesday. Rusedski ran his winning streak to seven matches with a 3-6, 6-3, 7-6 (2) victory over Karol Beck of Slovakia.
Hell hath no fury like a Mugabe minion maddened, judging by an official outburst in Zimbabwe’s government-owned media last weekend. In his vituperative column in the Herald newspaper, columnist ”Nathaniel Manheru” was in a particularly unforgiving mood about outgoing Zimbabwe Independent editor Iden Wetherell, whose paper has been an unrelenting critic of Robert Mugabe’s regime.
The upgrading as well as the building of new stadiums in the country will cost about R1,8-billion and 13 South African towns and cities will have to observe a deadline of June 2008 to meet a Fifa deadline for the infrastructure to be in place, says 2010 Soccer Bid Company CEO Danny Jordaan.
Godfrey Khotso Mokoena, South African junior long- and triple-jump record holder, became South Africa’s first medal winner of the 10th IAAF World Junior Athletics Championships in Italy on Wednesday when he finished second in the long jump with an excellent new South African junior record distance of 8,09m.
he International Cricket Council (ICC) confirmed on Wednesday that it has proposed a dispute-resolution process to the Zimbabwe Cricket Union and the Zimbabwean players that will see that current dispute in that country quickly resolved in Zimbabwe by Zimbabweans.