Emotions boiled over at a land conference recently, revealing deep rifts in approaches to land reform in South Africa. Heated exchanges also suggested a split in government views on the matter.
The United States on Thursday angrily denounced this week’s calls for the lifting of US and European Union sanctions against Zimbabwe by the leaders of Southern African nations and urged them to "openly distance" themselves from President Robert Mugabe’s government.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=19684">Mugabe palace hints at plans to stay</a>
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=19686">Fuel price up by 500%</a>
In a way I’ve been saving up this column for years. What inspires it is the commercial horror that millions of South Africans have had to undergo over their lives, what must cost this country literally billions every year in lost business, what causes more personal stress and outrage than is measurable, what is little short of a national disgrace. The name of this affliction is what is called our telephone service.
Making uKhahlamba (Drakensberg) out of a molehill. This is the government’s appraisal of a week that has rocked the country as its second-in-command, Jacob Zuma, stands accused of becoming a rent-a-deputy-president.
Last week a huge consignment of six tonnes of ivory, believed to have been hunted in the DRC, was seized in Zambia. East Africa is fast becoming a major international hub for ivory trafficking, yet efforts to catch traffickers are being frustrated by poor regional cooperation.
Tony Blair’s hopes of leading Britain into the single currency before the next general election are in ruins after Labour loyalists admitted this week that Downing Street’s battle with the BBC has ”derailed” the pro-euro campaign.
The countries surrounding Africa’s Great Lakes are not known for their democratic credentials. So it was with some justification that eyebrows were raised on Tuesday when Paul Kagame and his Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF) romped home with an unbelievable 95% landslide victory in Rwanda’s first-ever, multiparty elections.
Mutinational corporations must also be tackled as part of the case against Zuma, writes Hennie van Vuuren.
Last week’s attacks come at a sensitive time for India, when relations between Hindu and Muslim communities are severely strained, and as India’s ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) prepares for a general election next year.
Rudolf Straeuli has spread the net far and wide, so just about anyone bar Geo Cronje might be named in his Springbok World Cup squad this weekend. True to form, Straeuli has refused to dismiss the claims of any of the walking wounded in his extended World Cup squad of 40, repeating merely that all would be revealed at the Supersport Show on Saturday.