When Cleopatra Taona went to the Randfontein testing centre for her driver’s-licence test at the beginning of June this year, she failed. If that was not a daunting enough experience, she has since been unable to make a second appointment. ”I called the GP [Gauteng] call centre to get a new date, whereupon I was told that I would be put on a waiting list as it was fully booked for the next two months. But I was assured I would get a date by July,” she says.
The Sunday Times has forced into the open persistent rumours about Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang and alcohol abuse that, if correct, raise new questions about her fitness for office. The minister’s spokesperson, Sibani Mngadi, has dismissed the allegations as ”garbage”.
Turkey’s political identity is facing renewed crisis after the foreign minister and former Islamist, Abdullah Gul, announced he would run for president, the country’s highest secular post. Defying the secularist elite, he resubmitted his candidacy for the job after his first attempt to secure the post prompted a tidal wave of protests that followed a veiled threat of intervention by the army.
Mariam Khamis Adam is huddled on the floor, using giant marker pens to draw a picture of her childhood memories. ”These are flowers,” she says, ”and this is the Janjaweed killing my older brother. This is my other brother, he ran from the house and survived. Later he died of illness.”
The ANC Youth League’s proposed list for the top six positions on the ANC’s national executive committee might feature the following names: Jacob Zuma (for president), Kgalema Motlanthe (deputy president), Makhenkesi Stofile (national chairperson), Gwede Mantashe (secretary general), Baleka Mbete (deputy secretary general) and Matthews Phosa (treasurer general).
Dr Nokuzola Ntshona, deputy manager of the East London Hospital Complex and medical superintendent of the Cecilia Makiwane Hospital, was suspended this week for blowing the whistle in the media on baby deaths at Frere Hospital. Zukile Majova spoke to her.
One of the problems with discussing humanitarian intervention is that the term itself means different things to different people. For legal scholars it describes military intervention to come to the aid of people facing acute danger, for humanitarian aid workers it is the impartial distribution of emergency relief.
The floor-crossing window, which opens next month, could diminish further the strength of most opposition parties. For the first time this year the floor-crossing window for national and provincial MPs will coincide with that for municipal councillors. The 11 opposition parties are expected to lose more members to the ruling African National Congress.
Despite turmoil in international markets, the Reserve Bank’s monetary policy committee (MPC) raised interest rates another 50 basis points on Thursday, bringing the repo rate to 10% and the prime rate to 13,5%. ”The MPC noted that recent financial market developments in some of the developed economies have had spillover effects on emerging markets including South Africa,” it said in a statement.
The Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge saga has exposed President Thabo Mbeki’s Machiavellianism and the secretive, top-down culture he has encouraged. Forces long held in check have started to break loose, and the consequences for Mbeki and his legacy are ominous.