After four days it took a seven-year-old child to ask the question millions would like answered. As the Prince of Wales continued his tightly scheduled tour of Australia on Thursday he was confronted by Pamela Kenneally-Murphy at a primary school in Melbourne. Wrapping her arms around the heir to the throne she said: ”I hope you are in love with the woman you are marrying.”
Countrywide pay protests by disgruntled truckers are to continue on Friday, the South African Transport and Allied Workers Union (Satawu) said in Johannesburg. ”We will push ahead until the employer starts negotiating in good faith and show more commitment to resolving the current disagreement,” said Satawu representative June Dube.
The largest and probably worst child abuse case ever heard in a French criminal court got under way on Thursday when 66 adults, including 27 women, appeared in a specially built courtroom accused of raping, sexually abusing and prostituting 45 children.
A confidential report on the abuse of MPs’ travel vouchers currently being considered by a special parliamentary task team lends new weight to calls for legal action against Bathong Travel, the only agency implicated in the scandal which has not yet faced liquidation or criminal charges.
The Month of Photography and the Month of People’s Photography have brought contradictory images to the Mother City, writes Nawaal Deane.
The sister of the boy accusing Michael Jackson of child molestation told the court on Thursday that on one of the first times the family visited Neverland ranch, the boy asked if he could sleep in the singer’s bedroom. The family agreed.
The city was quiet but the soldiers sitting and swaying inside the Stryker were animated by their favourite debate: was it better to be five metres or 20 metres from an explosion? The front gunner belonged to the 20-metre school, figuring the greater distance reduced your chances of losing limbs to the blast.
President Thabo Mbeki’s announcement of the retirement of Chief Justice Arthur Chaskalson means there will be a new incumbent by the second half of this year. He or she will inherit a right mess. A few weeks ago it might have been hoped, thanks to the adroit handling of the African National Congress’s January 8 statement by Judge Chaskalson, that the crisis had passed …
South African business retained its confidence, but that buoyancy may be tempered in the months ahead by high oil prices and runaway consumer spending.
On Thursday, the South African Chamber of Business (Sacob) released its Business Confidence Index for February at 126,9, but the index was recorded ahead of last week’s Budget and does not include this week’s spike in the oil price and continued consumer spending.
I watched the first episode of the new SABC3 weekly newspaper drama, <i>Hard Copy</i>, with more than a modicum of interest. I’d heard there’d been some squabbling between the SABC and e.tv, each one claiming it first thought up the idea of a programme set in a local newspaper. In fact, SABC television wins hands down with <i>Final Edition</i>, aired 18 years ago.