No image available
/ 4 November 2005
On the potholed and bullet-scarred streets of Liberia, a former world footballer-of-the-year is trying to beat a 66-year-old politician at her own game. Next Tuesday, ex-Chelsea and AC Milan player, high-school drop-out George Weah will go head-to-head with Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, a grandmother with a Harvard degree, in the presidential run-off in this war-ravaged West African country.
No image available
/ 4 November 2005
As Muslims held a mass prayer at Cairo’s Mustafa Mahmud mosque, the personal tragedies of Sudanese refugees continued to unfold a few metres away, screened off from the Eid al-Fitr festival like an eyesore. For the rituals marking the end of the holy Muslim month of Ramadan, the authorities had temporarily erected coloured screens to hide the chaotic makeshift camp from the mosque.
No image available
/ 4 November 2005
Under the stewardship of one of the youngest, if not the youngest, executive teams on the JSE, Makalani Holdings has just concluded what it considers an "active" quarter. It has spent R443-million of R2,5-billion of shareholders’ funds, or 17%, since making its debut on the bourse in May.
No image available
/ 4 November 2005
The gaggle of girls who hung about outside the restaurant were pitiful in their disconsolate finery. Miniscule black cocktail dresses ballooned like tiny soft-porn spinnakers up their toothpick thighs in the Cape Town gale, and when no one was watching, beautifully manicured hands rubbed concentration-camp elbows and shoulders in a vain attempt to keep warm.
No image available
/ 4 November 2005
Harry Han was pleased with himself. In the space of a few minutes, the dapper, handsome 29-year-old had pocketed a couple of women’s phone numbers and was now coolly scanning the crowd for his next target. ”There are five hours and each date takes eight minutes, so I can get to know a lot of people,” Han said on a recent Saturday evening of matchmaking in China’s largest city, Shanghai.
No image available
/ 4 November 2005
Women with attractive faces tend to have higher levels of the sex hormone oestrogen, according to a study published this month. The finding suggests that features such as large eyes and lips are linked to higher fertility and so make women appear more attractive.
No image available
/ 4 November 2005
Western Cape Premier Ebrahim Rasool’s bid to change the racial balance of his department could be scuppered if a dispute over 10 posts is not resolved by next Friday. A date hasn’t been set for arbitration between the provincial administration and trade unions, the Public Servants Association and Hospersa.
No image available
/ 4 November 2005
Zimbabwe’s intelligence agents have bugged the phones of Rural Housing Minister Emmerson Mnangagwa, and have been conducting surveillance on his two Harare homes on the instruction of President Robert Mugabe. A senior Central Intelligence Organisation operative told the Mail & Guardian that Mugabe feared his former protégé was planning to defect from Zanu-PF, taking with him disillusioned sections of the ruling party.
No image available
/ 4 November 2005
The Gautrain Rapid Rail Link still faces stiff opposition from within the government as its true costs emerge. The train sailed through one obstacle this week when a court challenge to the structure of the empowerment component in Bombela, the preferred bidder to build and operate the train, was thrown out.
No image available
/ 4 November 2005
Ten years after the world watched in horror as Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight other Ogoni activists were executed by the Nigerian government on trumped-up charges the Ogoni people living in the oil-rich Niger Delta are little closer to justice. Nigeria may be Africa’s biggest producer of crude but in Ogoniland oil from rusting pipelines contaminates farmland and police continue to attack residents.