Just how relevant is the Township Residential Property Markets (TRPM) survey — released last week amid fanfare — to the mass of poor township residents? The survey found the secondary property market in townships was "dysfunctional", with only 8% of houses subject to a secondary transaction over five years.
When England’s team to play the All Blacks in Dunedin this Saturday was announced there were dark mutterings in the land where they haven’t won the World Cup since 1987. Clive Woodward was doing what he did in 1998, selecting a deliberately weak team to fulfil onerous end-of-season fixtures against strong southern hemisphere opposition.
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe’s propaganda chief Jonathan Moyo was stopped in his tracks by the old guard of the ruling Zanu-PF when he tried to elbow his way into the top echelons of political power. Their move came as Moyo began openly to make a power play ahead of the party’s critical congress scheduled for December.
No prizes for predicting that apathy and ignorance will ensure yet another record low turnout in this week’s European elections — just at the moment when 350-million people across the continent are eligible to vote. And that’s not only in the veteran European Union member states but, alarmingly, also in several of the eastern newcomers.
The Zimbabwean government has announced that it intends to nationalise all farmland, a step that its critics fear will hasten the collapse of agriculture when millions of people depend on food aid. ”This is not in the best interests of Zimbabweans, black and white,” said the director of the pressure group Justice for Agriculture.
…But the reaction of groups excluded from the interim government could spell trouble. Mainstream Shia and Sunni Arab politicians this week welcomed a new United Nations resolution unanimously agreed by the UN Security Council on Tuesday, which promises broad powers to the interim government after June 30.
The Nobel Peace Prize nominee Leyla Zana, who has championed Kurdish causes in Turkey from a prison cell for the past 10 years, was released last week with three fellow ex-MPs. At the same time, Turkey has allowed Kurdish language programmes to be broadcast for the first time.
Is the Comrades Marathon a sleeping dragon or a dinosaur, trying to find somewhere comfortable to die? The latter would seem to be where the betting money is going, with the news that entries for this year’s up-run are just 12 013 after an all-time high of 24 223 in the race’s 2000 edition.
This is turning out to be a good year for South Africans to gather gongs. Adding to our Nobel literature prize, Academy Award and the 2010 Soccer World Cup, Stan Christodoulou will on Sunday become the first South African to be inducted into the international boxing Hall of Fame in New York.
The Absa Cup final in Bloemfontein on Sunday will be more than just a big match for both Manning Rangers and Moroka Swallows. For Rangers, who escaped relegation by a hair’s breadth this season, the final is their first chance to win some silverware since they lifted the inaugural Premier Soccer League title in 1996/97.