What’s in a label? For the workers at Lebanon Fruit Farm Trust, an equity empowerment fruit and wine project in the Western Cape’s Elgin Valley, it means education, roads and street lights. Empowerment in the wine industry has been a mixed bouquet, showing the benefits of broad-based deals and the sour grapes of elite enrichment.
The prospect of more violence in Kenya has escalated following the call for another rally, in Mombasa on July 24, in support of constitutional reform. Supporters of President Mwai Kibaki have threatened the organisers of the rally with "unfortunate consequences" should it go ahead. At least two people were killed and several others arrested during demonstrations earlier this month.
”Steve who? Is he also Nigerian?” responded new Orlando Pirates coach Kosta Papic when asked about former child prodigy and now adult almost-superstar Steve ”Chippa” Lekoelea. Generally, it is no big deal when a foreign coach does not know the local players. But it is no small matter in this case.
As he stared at his ball, perhaps Tiger Woods was already thinking that the game was up. There it sat, under a gorse bush. Then something happened that put any notions of sporting failure or success into perspective. A moment that chilled the blood, a blunt reminder that this ceremony was indeed part of the wider world.
If South Africa beat New Zealand in Christchurch on Saturday it will be a miracle, but not because the All Blacks are a great side, for they are not, and not because the Springboks are poor, for they are far from that. No, victory is bizarrely unlikely because the Springboks will take the field dragging tons of emotional baggage behind them.
The militants who last weekend brought Gaza to a state of near anarchy in protest at the alleged corruption of Yasser Arafat’s regime have warned they will take more action if they are not heeded. ”This is just the beginning,” said Abu Shakir, a leader of the group that attacked police stations and kidnapped a Palestinian police chief. ”The basic demand is that we want free and fair elections.”
The criticism that one of the biggest Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) deals ever has elicited must have taken its architects by surprise. The Standard Bank BEE deal is worth about R4,1-billion. Yet the spotlight has fallen on the ”enrichment” of the two BEE players who benefit from the remaining 40%, Saki Macozoma’s Safika and Cyril Ramaphosa’s Millennium Consolidated Investments companies.
Lawyers for the defence intend to produce evidence that some of the mercenaries accused of plotting to overthrow the government of Equatorial Guinea have bought weapons from Zimbabwe in the past. The defence team of the 70 men arrested in Harare in March will contest all the charges against them — including violations of Zimbabwean security, firearms, immigration and aviation laws.
A modern world might find it impossible to comprehend the level of racism in the United States in 1910 when the first black world heavyweight boxing champion, Jack Johnson, inflicted a beating on the so-called ”Great White Hope” Jim Jeffries, a former champion lured out of retirement to give Johnson the beating white society craved.
As he heard gunfire being exchanged between groups of Palestinian gunmen in the dispute over who should head the Palestinian police in Gaza, Ahmed Kaskin could only wonder at the cost of the ammunition and what the money could do for his family. If one of his six sons was drawing a policeman’s wage, he might have been more partisan.