Roth, Grass, Updike, Lessing, McEwan, Spark, Garcia Marquez. It read like a rollcall of modern literature’s titans and anyone scanning the shortlist for the inaugural Man Booker International prize could have been forgiven for missing the giant of Albanian letters nestling among them.
CNN’s founder, Ted Turner, has accused the news channel of dumbing down by devoting too much airtime to what he termed ”pervert of the day” at the expense of serious news. Turner told staff at a celebration of CNN’s 25th anniversary that he had tried to create a channel that would eschew the ”trivial news” liked by local stations in favour of international coverage.
Schabir Shaik’s trial, the Oilgate controversy and the intense public debate over the Telkom empowerment process have focused attention on whether the Malaysian model — with its interpenetration of politics and economic empowerment — is being duplicated here.
You’ve probably spotted the Citroën C4 robot dancing across your TV screen in the past few months, but you may not be aware that it wouldn’t be dancing at all without the expertise of Cape Town-based Atomic Visual Effects. The commercial was directed by South African-born director Neill Blomkamp.
Over the past fortnight, the African National Congress has maintained that R11-million it received before last year’s elections was an ordinary donation from a private company. But Imvume Management was no ordinary private company, judging by its chief executive’s CV.
A Namibian legal activist has expressed dismay that controversy raging in South Africa over the efficacy of vitamins as a treatment for HIV/Aids has reached his country. Delme Cupido, coordinator for the Aids Law Unit of Legal Assistance Centre — a Namibian public-interest law centre — wrote a letter published in <i>The Namibian</i> newspaper.
Like Bill Clinton and the Starr Commission during the Monica Lewinsky affair, this week’s dispute between AngloGold Ashanti (AGA) and Human Rights Watch (HRW) turned on what constitutes a relationship. "If you put the meetings, the financial support and the house together, clearly it’s a relationship," Anneke van Woudenberg, author of the Human Rights Watch report, <i>The Curse of Gold.</i>
Anglo American South Africa CEO Lazarus Zim says the company has investment projects totalling $6,2-billion planned over the next four years, of which $4,2-billion is destined for Africa. Anglo American has invested R100-billion in South Africa over the past five years, more than any other company.
This week’s results by banking group Absa emphasise the bank’s attraction to Barclays, and the British bank could make it soar. On Monday, South Africa’s largest retail bank unveiled an increase in headline earnings of 23,3% and an average return on equity of 25,5%, a figure that analysts expect to see increase.
"Let the foreigners go back to their own countries and sort out their own problems." So said a principal last year while rejecting an invitation for his school to participate in an event that explored xenophobia.