The arrival of a new premium beer and spirits distributor in South Africa may give SABMiller some grey hairs on the yuppie beer front. This week saw the launch of Brandhouse, a three-way joint venture between Diageo, Heineken and Namibian Breweries. The company will distribute premium beer brands including Heineken, Windhoek and Guinness, and whiskies Johnnie Walker, J&B and Bells.
At this week’s annual gathering of leaders of the most troubled continent on the globe, a little change — better still, reduction — in conflict would have been welcome. But there they were again in Addis Ababa. The usual suspects. Sudan and DRC emerged at the top of the African Union’s list of hot spots.
Political office has never been for the faint-of-heart. Getting into office is often a dirty business, and staying there a trying one. There’s no denying, however, that legislators from developing countries — in the case of this article, Zimbabwe — face a particularly challenging set of circumstances.
Many of us would feel a lot better if President Thabo Mbeki, the most credible and influential leader in the region, would phone Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe and give him a firm and irrevocable deadline to move out of office. It would enable us to feel that the fundamental human rights values,for which we fought in the struggle against apartheid, are alive and well. The problem is that South African foreign policy does not work like that.
The last time The Open Championship visited Royal Troon Colin Montgomerie was the hottest golfer in Europe. Over the past three years two South African golfers — Ernie Els and Retief Goosen — have usurped Montgomerie’s hegemony of the European Order of Merit. Last week Goosen leapfrogged Els to lead the standings.
Australia’s cricketers, currently playing Sri Lanka, are in unfamiliar territory. The Test venues are small and seedy. The surrounding jungles and mangrove swamps are infested with leeches, and sparsely peopled by simple peasants, some of whom are heavily armed and distrustful of foreigners.
The All Blacks should edge the Pacific Islanders at set pieces but believe countering their swarming play at the breakdown will be a different matter in Saturday’s rugby test at North Harbour stadium. The tackle and ruck areas have been areas of concern for New Zealand in their past two tests, after their convincing wins over Argentina and England.
In American television they call it ”stunting”: the publicity-seeking novelty aimed at luring viewers back to a series they haven’t watched for months. Think cameo appearances by Brad Pitt on Friends. And now John Kerry’s campaign for the United States presidency did some stunting of its own. He, too, introduced a new character.
Although the trial of Saddam Hussein in Baghdad is gripping theatre, attention should not shift from matters of fundamental importance. Basic questions remain about the longer-term prospects for post-Hussein Iraq, and these ought not to remain out of focus. The former dictator’s trial should not be allowed
to draw attention away from the fierce armed struggle still raging in Iraq.
The club thuds on to the metal table and rolls heavily out of the plastic bag marked ”evidence”. Almost a metre of dark wood, its head is studded with nails, many of them mangled and flattened from the grisly use to which it was put. The evidence room at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda is full of these relics of the unimaginable.