<img src="http://www.mg.co.za/ContentImages/41909/10-X-Logo.gif" align=left>Of all the achievements chalked up by the African National Congress over the past 10 years, none seems to match its gains in providing housing for the poor. When Nelson Mandela took office in 1994, official estimates of the housing backlog ranged from 1,4-million to three million units — while the number of people living in shacks was put between five million and 7,7-million.
Former United States president Bill Clinton’s administration knew Rwanda was being engulfed by genocide in April 1994 but buried the information to justify its inaction, according to classified documents made available for the first time. The documents undermine claims that the US had not fully appreciated the scale of the crisis.
The remake of <i>Dawn of the Dead</i>, Goths on film, creative decorating with Post It Notes, the How Liberal Are You? test, Disney Urban legends and innovative ways to stash your cash … Sharp-tongued Ian Fraser trawls the web to bring you the creative and the crazy.
Urban planning expert Vanessa Watson feels strongly that African cities have failed the average woman. "Too much of our planning has tended to import models from the United States or Europe, and apply them here without questioning whether or not they are appropriate," she notes. Urban spaces need to be planned around the realities of African women’s lives
How healthy is South Africa’s public health system? And how big are the gaps between promises and practice? We visit the provinces to determine South Africa’s real state of health. This week the <i>M&G</i> looks at Limpopo, the most northerly of South Africa’s nine provinces, where the extreme poverty of the local inhabitants is constrasted starkly with world-famous luxury game lodges.
Back in the Fifties, nuclear power was hyped as ushering in an age where electricity would be too cheap to meter. Those power utilities that accepted the sales talk have been given plenty of reasons to regret it ever since. Despite the ‘war on terror’ being the global zeitgeist, it appears that Eskom may have placed itself shrewdly to profit from a form of nuclear energy.
”It’s rather depressing when you belong to a minority group whose best mainstream exposure comes through a movie that depicts one of your kind as a serial killer. Somehow my gut tells me that Monster is going to tell people what they think they already know about lesbians,” writes Jane Rood.
Australian midfielder Marco Bresciano’s first-half goal gave the Socceroos a 1-0 victory over Bafana Bafana in their international friendly at Loftus Road in London on Tuesday night. The South Africans dominated early on in the match and in the second half, but failed to capitalise with numerous scoring shots.
The case against a prominent soccer figure who was to appear in the Booysens Magistrate’s Court on Wednesday charged with assaulting his wife was postponed to Thursday, police said. Superintendent Chris Wilken said the case was postponed because the man’s attorney was not available.
A pinched shoulder nerve has knocked New South Wales vice-captain Phil Waugh out of the Waratahs’ Super 12 clash against the Blues this weekend in Auckland, the team said on Wednesday. Waugh was replaced as openside flanker for Sunday’s match by Lei Tomiki, who will be making his starting debut for the Waratahs.