The African National Congress has rejected a Johannesburg daily newspaper report on Tuesday that President Thabo Mbeki and ex-deputy president Jacob Zuma had met ”face to face” at an ANC national working committee meeting on Monday. The newspaper said that at the meeting, Mbeki had ”come down hard on key backers” of the embattled Zuma, who will face corruption charges in Durban on October 11.
Former Western Cape leader of the Independent Democrats Lennit Max has blocked the swearing-in of his successor in the provincial legislature. His legal team was granted an interim interdict by a Cape High Court judge late on Monday to prevent the party’s new provincial leader, Neville Hendricks, from taking his place as a member of the provincial legislature on Tuesday morning.
Israeli forces on Tuesday emptied the last of 25 Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip and West Bank earmarked for demolition, after warnings of an apocalyptic battle to end Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s historic pull-out failed to materialise. The military had feared that removing the 8Â 500 settlers, plus thousands of supporters, might take up to six weeks.
Three-year-old Elihle Xulu shrieks with delight when he sees his mother, Nompumelelo, in the clinic’s garden. She kicks a soccer ball for him and he runs panting after it. Then he plants himself on the swing: "Push! Push!" he calls. The little boy’s exuberance is still like a miracle for Nompumelelo, who feared she might never see her son grow up. Both she and her son are living with HIV.
Banks are unarguably the most popular financial institutions. The reason for this is not hard to fathom; they serve as reservoirs for most people’s savings. They do this by pooling funds from savers and channeling them to borrowers with mainly business concerns. This process is described as financial intermediation.
The internet is stamp-collecting heaven. No matter what kind of data or content you’re into, you can be sure that there are others who are equally obsessive about it. Whether it’s pictures of parrots, gerbils or naked celebrities, or perverse combinations of all three of the above, there are folks studiously assembling the data and cataloguing it online for all to enjoy.
Out of the blue, one Monday morning, my Prince Charming calls from Dakar. He has been invited to an Aids conference in South Africa. Can I pick him up at Johannesburg International airport on Friday? Yummy. Nice prospect for a honeymoon weekend. I wax, manicure, pedicure, colour hair, stock up on bubbly, candles and that good old ally, KY gel.
"When I was a young girl, one of my grandmother’s neighbours always borrowed stuff from us. One time it was washing powder. The next it would be sugar or vegetables or cooking oil. But, almost every month, she would ask for salt. Salt. Over the years, she became too embarrassed to come herself," writes Zimbabwean journalist Everjoice J Win.
Halfway between Rio de Janeiro and Cape Town, his yacht buffeted by nine-metre-high swells, his sail shredded by high winds, Sithembele ”Joe” Cata, battling to keep his 20-metre yacht upright and his breakfast down, asked himself what a poor black South African kid, who can’t swim, was doing crossing 5 700km of the stormy southern Atlantic.
For children’s rights activists like Deleli Kpeglo, efforts to combat child trafficking in Togo have often produced dispiriting results. ”We’ve tried everything possible, but such efforts have not been effective. Child traffickers keep coming back and taking away more children,” says Kpeglo, who works for Plan Togo, an NGO.