Gaye Davis GOVERNMENT employees who blow the whistle on corruption or maladministration will be protected from reprisals in terms of ground-breaking legislation currently being The proposed Open Democracy Act contains a “whistleblower” clause, protecting government employees who reveal wrongdoing. The draft legislation — currently in its 10th version — marks a complete break with the […]
In a blatant breach of international public broadcasting ethics, the SABC is screening promotional material which pretends to be educational, reports Justin Pearce Thursday afternoon on CCV-TV. You’ve recently had a baby, so when you hear that toilet training is the subject of today’s A Guide to Health, you take notice. The programme starts with […]
South African mercenaries have turned the tide of the civil war in Sierra Leone, reports Edward O’Loughlin Sierra Leone’s military government has been on a roll in recent weeks, driving rebels of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) back from the capital Freetown and recapturing the vital diamond mining region of Kono. The change in fortunes […]
The United States is putting pressure on South Africa to break diplomatic ties with Cuba, reports Stefaans Brummer SOUTH Africa is fast becoming a proxy battlefield for American policy on Cuba — but Pretoria’s diplomats appeared this week to be resisting pressure to toe Uncle Sam’s line on Fidel Castro. Department of Foreign Affairs representative […]
Paleo-tourism is the new buzzword after the discovery of the significance of ‘Little Foot’, report David Beresford and Eddie Koch In an office tucked away in a corner of the University of the Witwatersrand, a professor who looks disconcertingly like Albert Einstein can be found dreaming of a new form of tourism — a grand […]
Rehana Rossouw Africa’s last colony, the Sahrawi Republic (Western Sahara), is battling for support from the South African government which, it was hoping, could play an active role in its struggle for freedom from Moroccan colonisers — who are applying pressure on South Africa not to do so. South Africa is the only country in […]
School feeding schemes in the Eastern Cape have collapsed due to fraud and mismanagement, report Pat Sidley and Rod Amner President Nelson Mandela’s flagship presidential project, the school feeding scheme, has ground to a halt in the Eastern Cape. Fraud and incompetence has consumed the province’s R114-million budget for the year in just four months. […]
Pat Sidley IT’S not all bleak on the school-feeding front. Western Cape experts have piloted several projects they hope will nourish children, involve communities and assist the families of schoolchildren in nutrition education. The type of meal the province has settled for consists of a mealie-meal porridge with a sandwich and a soya- based flavoured […]
Eddie Koch Farmers in the Potchefstroom district fear vast tracts of arable land in the North-West have been damaged by radioactive waste and contaminated ground water from neighbouring gold mines. The Council for Nuclear Safety (CNS) last month completed a R5-million clean-up operation aimed at removing tons of used pipes and machinery that had been […]
Health care expert Paul Gross warns that Minister Nkosazana Zuma’s health insurance policy is fatally HEALTH Minister Nkosazana Zuma’s national health insurance system should have reassured those who expected draconian solutions to problems of access and financing in health care. But it remains flawed. I have looked at her committee of inquiry’s report, and judged […]