Former Mpumalanga premier Mathews Phosa distanced himself from shady “freelance” financier Jean Mopotu this week following revelations that the Zairian tried to source funding for Phosa’s ambitious R390-million casino development in Mozambique. Mopotu attained notoriety in 1998 when he helped international fraud fugitive and suspected chemical weapons dealer Moshe Regenstreich mastermind Mpumalanga’s R1,3-billion promissory note […]
PRESIDENT Thabo Mbeki will chair a new super cabinet committee which will “co-ordinate and monitor” everything related to national security. The inter-ministerial committee, to be known as the National Security Council, will be able to deal swiftly with security threats including natural disasters, regional conflicts and internal instability, government spokesman Joel Netshitenzhe said after the […]
A BRITISH man has jumped 2120 metres in a parachute made according to a design sketched by Italian inventor Leonardo da Vinci in the 15th century, proving that the pyramid-shaped contraption works. Beeld newspaper said Adrian Nicholas launched himself from a hot air balloon drifting close to the Kruger National Park in Mpumalanga province, at […]
SHARES in life assurer Capital Alliance shed over 20% in early trade on Tuesday on the back of disappointing full-year results released late on Monday. At just before 10am the counter was down 23,18%, or 335c, to R11,10, with 662401 shares changing hands. The fall in the share price far outpaced the life assurance sector, […]
A BOY died and 24 others were hospitalised in the Eastern Cape after circumcisions performed on them as part of a rite of passage went wrong. Police said the boys, all Xhosas aged between 14 and 18, are in a serious condition and there are fears that some of them may have to have their […]
BIRD strikes directly cost the Airport Company South Africa (ACSA) more than R4 million last year and indirectly between two and four times that figure. This was revealed on Thursday at a national workshop and the launch of the ACSA and the Endangered Wildlife Trust (EWT) partnership to minimise bird strikes which pose a danger […]
ARMED robbers killed 15 people in a new attack on a night bus in southeast Nigeria, in the latest in a string of incidents that have alarmed residents of the region. The attack took place near Onitsha in southeast Nigeria’s Anambra State, the Nigerian press reported. An armed gang had chased a bus along the […]
Ivor Powell The University of the Witwaters-rand is embroiled in a major embarrassment after it emerged that one of its distinguished research fellows was serving as representative for Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe’s Zanu-PF while he was accredited to represent the university. As a visiting research professor in the university’s political science department, Zimbabwean academic Professor […]
Taking time off from the Battlefield Tourist Route, Stephen Gray hunts down the bestselling Rider Haggard Granted, with perpetual sellers of his like King Solomon’s Mines of 1885, She and so on for 60 more rattling adventures, Henry Rider Haggard put South Africa on the reader’s map of the world. His timing was right. He […]
Howard Barrell and Barry Streek How do you react to the perception that both parties are ganging up against blacks? That is nothing new. They have been saying that about us and about the DP [Democratic Party] for as long as I can remember. The problem with the ANC [African National Congress] is that they […]