There are fears that the Donen commission investigating South African abuse of the Iraq oil-for-food programme may not regain momentum after public hearings were abandoned as they were about to start. The commission backed down in the face of a Pretoria High Court challenge by a witness it had subpoenaed to testify first. Bad drafting of its powers left it little choice.
Possible irregularities in the passage of legislation to eliminate cross-boundary municipalities are being investigated by the Public Protector. On May 8 the Cape Town office of the Public Protector handed a letter to the Speaker of Parliament, Baleka Mbete, asking her to explain how the 12th amendment to the Constitution was passed despite confusion over the recording of votes that took it past the required two-thirds majority.
When Bernardo Provenzano was arrested in mid-April, a few people in the computer-gaming industry might have suspected Electronic Arts of having a hand in it. What better publicity for the newly released <i>The Godfather</i> game than to have the Sicilian Mafia’s "boss of bosses" arrested outside the town of Corleone?
New Zealand is not for sale, despite somebody in neighbouring Australia trying to offload the nation of four million to the highest online bidder. With a starting offer of just one cent, brisk bidding for the prime chunk of South Pacific real estate quickly boosted the price to Aus 000 before eBay pulled the plug on the auction this week.
Christopher Columbus, who died in the northern Spanish city of Valladolid 500 years ago, ended his days alone and bitter, a fate shared by many other great explorers. Spain’s Conquistadors also came to a sticky end against the backdrop of violence and internecine rivalry which thrived in the 16th century, during the brutal conquest and colonisation of Latin America.
Businessman Patrice Motsepe has firmly rejected speculation that he might serve on the board of the new South African Football Association (Safa) commercial wing. The independent body, once it is up and running, will be run by businesspeople, the Premier Soccer League and Safa officials.
Twenty-one people appeared in court in southern Zimbabwe after the discovery of a flourishing marijuana plantation, reports said on Thursday. The 21 are part of a group of 29 arrested and charged under Zimbabwe’s Dangerous Drugs Act, said the state-controlled Herald newspaper.
Zimbabwe’s financial sector is facing a fresh crisis amid reports that the five biggest banks are sitting on costly Treasury bill portfolios that could wipe out their accumulated capital, it was established this week. Sources indicate that the banks are haemorrhaging from a raft of Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe policies that could precipitate bank failures.
During the process of being severely stuffed around (no weak jokes, please) in my recent day-to-day dealings, I’ve found a rather weird exponential scale at work: the hidden tenets of South African commerce.
A Johannesburg teenager who hanged herself this week filmed her own suicide, media reports said on Friday. The report said the 15-year-old girl of Emmarentia used a dog leash to hang herself from a security gate on Wednesday afternoon while her mother was at home.