Hurricane Dean buffeted Jamaica’s southern coast on Monday, flooding the capital and littering it with broken trees and roofs after killing nine people earlier on its run through the Caribbean. Dean was an ”extremely dangerous” category four hurricane, the second-highest on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale.
Armed with pistols and hair-trigger tempers, South Africa’s minibus taxi drivers are the undisputed kings of road rage, swerving through traffic and ignoring red lights as nervous motorists get out of the way. In a country struggling to prove its crime-ridden streets are safe before the 2010 Soccer World Cup, drivers often get caught up in gangland-style turf battles.
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African National Congress (ANC) members should not be misled into believing that the media would assist and find solutions for the many challenges facing the organisation, party deputy president Jacob Zuma said on Sunday. He said the media’s only objective was to sensationalise ANC problems.
Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang’s office on Sunday described a media report that she was an alcoholic and convicted thief as ”false, speculative and bizarre allegations”. ”As it did last week, the Sunday Times has yet again made false, speculative and bizarre allegations designed to demean the minister,” said Sibani Mngadi in a brief statement.
BEE, despite its redistributive intentions, has been doubly conducive to the interests of large-scale South African capital, says a new academic paper. It has largely served to entrench established interests, especially in the industrial fishing industry, with a few high-profile black partners receiving some of the cut while the risk is outsourced to black capital.
While everyone’s attention has been focused on the trials and tribulations of the life insurance sector, Sanlam has been quietly transforming itself into a diversified financial services company, focusing on home loans and money market accounts rather than life cover.
A mid all the hoopla surrounding the 60th anniversary of Indian independence, almost nothing has been heard from Pakistan, which also turned 60 recently. Nothing, that is, if you discount the low rumble of suicide bombings, the noise of automatic weapons storming the Red Mosque and the creak of slowly collapsing dictatorships.
Eskom will decide by year-end whether it will proceed with a new 100MW facility powered entirely by the sun. Concentrated solar power is a relatively new technology worldwide, but it has the backing of the World Bank because it is the only zero-greenhouse-gas-emission technology that has the potential to rival coal-fired power as a low-cost solution to the energy crisis.
While many land claims in rural areas have been settled, land restored to communities has often failed to bring hoped-for jobs and income. But one Mpumalanga community has found a way to break the deadlock and use its land to start tourism ventures. The beauty of eastern Mpumalanga and the evident prosperity of tourism ventures disguises the endemic poverty in the area.
In its 60th year as an independent nation, India has just elected its first woman president. Yet the ascent of the demure Pratibha Patil may not necessarily be a victory for Indian women. Today, in India, "women’s empowerment" is a government slogan; it is a feature of every party manifesto. There is a ministry for women and child development.