PROSPECTOR Mount Grace Resources NL has agreed with South Africa’s Mintek to build a pilot plant for producing magnesium in Australia’s Northern Territory. Mount Grace is to pay Mintek, South Africa’s government-backed minerals research group, up to A$2m to help fund construction of a 1.5 megawatt plant and for a licence to use Mintek’s continuous […]
THE man in charge of organising all-party talks in war-torn Democratic Republic of the Congo, former Botswanan president Sir Ketumile Masire, has expressed increasing pessimism about his chances of success, saying the international community was not doing enough to support him. Congolese President Laurent Kabila refuses to work with Masire, who is now looking for […]
Andy Colquhoun Harry Viljoen is set to irrevocably change the face of South African rugby when he becomes Springbok coach in Cape Town today. Viljoen is likely to announce that he will be taking 10 black players in the 40-strong Springbok squad for the four-Test end-of- season tour to Argentina, Ireland, Wales and England. And […]
David Le Page african frontiers It’s all about detective work, says one of the astronomers involved in the building of the Southern African Large Telescope (Salt). As they labour on a Karoo mountain top building Salt over the next five years, South Africa’s intergalactic Hercule Poirots know they are essentially building a great big magnifying […]
Jaspreet Kindra A deal to allow traditional authorities to function as parallel local councils was being hammered out this week in an effort to break the deadlock between traditional leaders and the government threatening to postpone the local government elections. The discussion of the plan suggests the African National Congress has backed down from its […]
Before you can conquer new territory, you need to know where you are going Leon Forde Creating an accurate map of infinite, abstract cyberspace is not the easiest task for cartographers. Cyberspace, of course, does not exist. It is, to paraphrase novelist William Gibson, a consensual hallucination of space and surface – our brains perceive […]
Fiona Macleod Vervet monkeys who have been terrifying staff and patients at the Ga-Rankuwa hospital near Pretoria have become part of an ambitious pilot project to save the species in South Africa. Volunteers at the Vervet Monkey Foundation trapped the Ga-Rankuwa troop of 15 this week and moved them to cages in a Johannesburg suburb. […]
Steven Friedman worm’s eye view Do we need judges to do what elected politicians cannot? If a Constitutional Court case decided this week is a guide, the short answer is “yes”. The court this week ruled on the fate of people living on a Western Cape sports field who were spared eviction when High Court […]
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez used last week’s oil summit to demand justice from industrialised nations Charlotte Denny and Alex Bellos in Caracas Opec blamed the tax systems of rich countries for high oil prices last week as they rallied to the call by the Venezuelan President, Hugo Chavez, to politicise the oil producers’ cartel as […]
Barry Streek Last-minute bargaining over the details of South Africa’s new gun control law continued this week, particularly over the numbers of weapons owned by people such as farmers and the protection of women and children in cases of violence. The latest amendments, due to be voted on in the safety and security portfolio committee […]