Indonesia’s president warned on Monday night it would take months to deal with the basic needs of tens of thousands of earthquake survivors, as rescue teams all but gave up hope of pulling more people alive from the rubble. Relief has started trickling through to towns demolished by Saturday’s 6,3-magnitude quake that killed at least 4 300 people on Java island.
Winning the South African Guild of Motoring Journalists Car of the Year award is no mean feat, especially when you take into consideration the scores of new models that are launched every year in South Africa. Members of the guild normally whittle down the options (by vote) and the cars are then tested extensively by members.
The facelifted Honda Accord looks like a neater, sexier version of an over-the-top racing Nascar: it is broad, squat with a no-nonsense nose, dark 17-inch alloy wheels that fill the flared wheel arches and it sits quite close to the ground. By far the most impressive aspect of the upgraded Accord is that Honda is offering these cars with more features at a reduced price.
A few years ago the Actuarial Society of South Africa held a seminar on the responsibilities of a pension trustee. At the end of the seminar, when asked who would still be comfortable to take on the role of a pension trustee, not a single hand went up, demonstrating the weighty responsibility that trustees carry, says Magda Wierzycka, CEO of African Harvest Fund Managers.
South Africa’s telecommunication industry is so poorly structured that an industry worth several billion has sprung up in its shadows, offering cut-price calls. The LCR or least-cost routing industry is saving businesses up to 40%, through implementing savings on the cellphone portion of their Telkom bill.
Long-awaited legislation to allow schools cheaper access to the Internet has been approved — more than four years after the Department of Education and the Department of Communications introduced the idea in a policy document. A bungle involving the departments and telephony parastatal Telkom has delayed the introduction of an e-rate, a discounted rate for Internet services.
Felix Moncada Suarez and his family had prepared themselves to board the flight from Roissy airport near Paris for the Ecuador capital Quito on the evening of May 19. It was not a flight they wanted to take. At the very last minute, the ministry of the interior reversed its ruling to expel the family from France.
Most people have never heard of Nagmeldin Abdallah. It is impossible to reach him in the eastern Sudanese prison where he waits for word on an appeal that may save his life. But Abdallah has achieved minor notoriety in activist circles. Sudan’s complex death penalty statutes may never have gained international attention were it not for Abdallah.
Jacob Zuma emerges from the Johannesburg High Court after being roundly cleared of rape, and makes just two points to the crowd of admirers: he thanks them, and he hits at the media. Echoing comments by Judge Willem van der Merwe, he accuses the media of having found him guilty before all the evidence was in.
I may as well state the facts up front. This article is not about the Jacob Zuma rape trial. It is best to be clear about this to avoid the passionate disquisitions and name-calling of ”bjective”intellectuals and ”biased” partisans alike. I find it strange that in all the buzz about South Africa’s transformation — particularly the transformation of the judiciary — one subject has not been broached.