Three major publishers are taking the KwaZulu-Natal Department of Education to court over its textbook selection procedures, less than two weeks before the start of the new school year. KwaZulu-Natal schools reopen on January 21.
South Africa’s President Thabo Mbeki begins his political year alienated from his most powerful ally in Africa, Nigeria’s President Olusegun Obasanjo, because of South Africa’s obstinate support for Zimbabwe at the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting last month.
Zanu-MDC talks: The stumbling blocks
The African National Congress is launching its 2004 election campaign on January 10 and 11 in Durban. "The ANC hopes to convince the voters of KwaZulu-Natal that a clear ANC majority in the province is critical for faster progress towards the elimination of poverty," the <i>ANC Today</i> newsletter said on Friday.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=29452">ANC manifesto TV coverage ‘unfair'</a>
The vice-president of the main opposition Malawi Congress Party resigned on Thursday to form a new political movement. Gwanda Chakuamba (69) said he was acting under pressure from his supporters, who have been asking him to form his own party to contest May general elections.
South Africa’s Department of Labour is in the process of wrapping up its investigations into the cause of a cableway accident that injured two people last Friday in Hartbeespoort in the North West. The final report on the accident is expected to be finalised in the next four weeks.
A legislator and top Harare businessman was on Thursday hauled before the Harare Magistrate’s Court to explain his role in a multi-million dollar scandal that has hit Zimbabwe’s financial sector. Phillip Chiyangwa is the first politician suspected of involvement in the financial sector crisis that has seen a run on deposits by panicky depositors.
Sixty-five people, most of them children under the age of five, have died of malnutrition and other hunger-related causes in the Zimbabwean city of Bulawayo over the past five months. The highest number of malnutrition deaths in the city were of babies and children between the ages of one month and five years.
South African President Thabo Mbeki on Wednesday gave the nod to the Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment Act of 2003, which will come into operation on a date still to be determined by him.
Farmed salmon, an increasingly popular dish on dinner tables worldwide, contains significantly higher levels of toxic substances than the more expensive wild variety, a team of US and Canadian researchers said.
Even though informal contacts between Zimbabwe’s ruling Zanu-PF and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) have produced a number of detailed options for ending the country’s political and economic crises, the two sides remain a long way off from formal talks.