Russia’s Bolshoi theatre will undergo a -million overhaul in the next three years, a day after the last performance took place in the legendary building. The current estimated cost is more than twice the amount spent on a recent renovation of the Kremlin, a sum that itself raised eyebrows among Russian commentators.
A bribery scandal looked set to snowball at German car giant Volkswagen (VW) on Friday in what threatens to deal a fresh blow to the image of Europe’s biggest car maker just as it is beginning to steer itself out a long crisis. The burgeoning scandal was triggered by the shock resignation two weeks ago of the personnel chief at VW’s Czech arm.
A R1-billion deal that will see 10% of hospital group Network Healthcare Holdings (Netcare) acquired by broad-based empowerment groupings will be put to the group’s shareholders for the vote on September 16, the group said on Friday. If approved, the deal would become effective on October 1, it added.
For television, this is the season of repeats. Nowadays the programmers are too canny to flag anything quite so boldly, however. They prefer to tempt the viewer by sticking words such as ”Revisited” or ”Second Helping” on the original title in the hope we’ll spend the whole show saying, ”Have we seen this before?” Sport is much the same.
The long-awaited Ashes cricket series hasn’t even begun and already football’s big spenders are starting to dominate the headlines. The big summer sale? Michael Owen, by the look of it. Though the former Liverpool striker has said he wants to stay with Real Madrid, word is that Chelsea is set to attract the him back to the Premiership.
Jan Ullrich is confident he can add to his single Tour de France win achieved in 1997, before six-time winner Lance Armstrong dominated the sport like no cyclist before him, when the 2005 edition starts on Saturday in Fromentine. ”For everyone, and especially for me, it’s a big motivation to beat the great Lance,” said Ullrich.
Coming back from Sekhukuneland earlier this week I was surprised at how much things in South African rugby have changed. The Springboks are riding the crest of a wave after a through dismantling of a lethargic French side in Port Elizabeth last weekend.
Vidal justifies injustice I agree with John Vidal (“The hypocrisy of Mugabe’s critics”, July 8) when he labels the West hypocritical. Robert Mugabe escaped censure when he slaughtered 20 000 people in Matabeleland in the 1980s because of the West’s double standards. But does the fact that the World Bank-funded projects requiring the eviction of […]
The billionaire Russian metals tycoon Oleg Deripaska ignited a political row on Thursday after it emerged he is planning to buy a ,7-million dacha that belonged to the former Soviet dictator Josef Stalin. The two-storey luxury dacha where Stalin relaxed by the Black Sea is situated in Georgia’s breakaway Abkhazia republic and Georgian politicians were enraged by news of the intended purchase.
A special United Nations envoy sent to investigate Zimbabwe’s controversial campaign of shack demolitions praised President Robert Mugabe’s government for its ”vision”, the state-run Herald newspaper claimed on Friday.