David Beresford President Nelson Mandela’s tendency to “shoot from the hip” on foreign policy matters — a trait which is the despair of diplomats, but admired by others as straight talking — was on display again this week when he panned the British prime minister on the eve of his state visit to the United […]
Andrew Wilson WOZA ALBERT 15 years on? If it was Brecht, there would be no question: the German’s works had sufficient form and structure to carry them decades into the future — something the loose, informal construction of Woza Albert doesn’t have. Brecht is offered to students as an example of didactic, political theatre; commentary […]
Vietnam, with its frequent changes in policy and bureaucratic rule, has left investors confused and wary. Nicholas Cumming-Bruce reports from Hanoi An 18-storey hotel, soaring above a jumble of low- rise Hanoi houses and construction sites, is a landmark to the rapid changes rattling this once- sleepy capital of faded colonial villas and lakes. Foreign […]
Eddie Koch Senior Department of Trade and Industry officials have come under fire from the European Union (EU) for refusing to endorse a ban on the movement of toxic waste to developing nations because South Africa can treat and recycle hazardous materials. This is despite repeated statements that the Cabinet is opposed to the international […]
Mountaineers question whether the South African Everest team ever really reached the summit. Justin Pearce and Gaye Davis report A row is brewing over who owns the still-unpublised photos of the South African Everest team at the summit. Everest expedition leader Ian Woodall says he is holding on to the photos of the South African […]
Muslim members of Mozambique’s Parliament are trying to pass a law recognising the days of Eid as public holidays. Andrew Meldrum reports from Boane Sabati Omar breaks from his work building a mosque to explain how Islam is growing in Boane, a rural area in southern Mozambique. “Every month we see somebody convert,” says Omar, […]
RUGBY: Jon Swift Boy Louw said it best. “Looks for the scoreboards” was his superbly unique and ungrammatical reply to criticism of how the Spingboks played. So it should be with the 43-18 scoreline from this week’s test against Fiji at Loftus Versfeld. This was not an inspired perfomance. But it was a winning one, […]
Prospects of a large church congress in Zimbabwe has given impetus to the gay rights movement, writes Iden Wetherell in Harare ZIMBABWE’s embattled gay community, the target of an abusive campaign last year by President Robert Mugabe and Zimbabwean church leaders, is bracing for another confrontation with the same opponents. A proposal by international Protestant […]
Justin Pearce A schoolteacher seeking paternity leave, a group of prisoners claiming to have been assaulted and a schoolboy defending his right to have long hair are among the stories told inside the cardboard folders stacked on the desk of Human Rights Commission (HRC) member Pansy Tlakula. Upstairs in the stately Houghton office suite occupied […]
The jury is still out on whether the new framework for small business policy can be put into action, writes Aspasia Karras The White Paper on a National Strategy for the Development of Small Business in South Africa, endorsed in March 1995, is finally kicking into life. The national Small Business Act was tabled in […]