In a touching display of muscular singing and rhythmic dancing on stick-like legs with the aid of crutches, the handicapped adults of Theis in Senegal are drumming up their own style of social mobilisation campaign, calling on people not to let their children end up in wheelchairs and be crippled by polio like them. Joining the chorus from mosques and minarets, the word has gone out across 23 sub-Saharan African countries.
The construction industry has set itself the task of drafting a black economic empowerment charter — amid sharp differences over ownership targets and skills development. Mike Wylie, co-chairperson of the charter work group, told the <i>Mail & Guardian</i> last week that the sector should not be trapped by a "fixation on ownership".
Heterosexual men need to take more responsibility for trying to stop the spread of HIV/Aids in Southern Africa, according to regional health experts. At a workshop held in Swaziland’s capital, Mbabane, on Thursday, health workers, government officials and Aids activists called on men across the region to assume a greater role in tackling the disease. At 38,6%, Swaziland has the one of world’s highest rates of HIV infection.
If the truth be told, President Thabo Mbeki did not need to go on the imbizo that ended in Mpumalanga’s Ga-Manoke village last week, to understand the concerns of his people. This is not to say that the president wasted his time. Nor does it mean that it is a futile exercise for people to meet their elected public officials. Each village and town has its own nuances and idiosyncracies, and the country’s number-one citizen can surely learn a thing or two by paying them a visit.
Billionaire investor George Soros is giving greater control of his business to his sons, Robert and Jonathan, and at the same time scaling back his empire by spinning off several divisions. For years Soros (74) has devoted an increasing amount of time to philanthropy and is engaged in a concerted effort to unseat United States President George W Bush.
At first glance the violence in Jabaliya in Palestine and in the Iraqi town of Samarra appear to be unconnected. The Israeli army’s incursion into northern Gaza looks like just another deadeningly familiar episode in the unending conflict between Palestinians and Jews. The United States-led weekend assault on insurgents in mainly Sunni Samarra seems to be broadly typical of the continuing turmoil in Iraq.
The Iraq Survey Group, after 17 months of hunting through Iraq and interviewing hundreds of members of Saddam Hussein’s regime, last week delivered a verdict unhelpful to George W Bush or Tony Blair: that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction when they went to war and that there was no imminent threat. The two leaders will have to justify the war in Iraq in terms of Hussein’s intentions rather than the reality.
A billionaire is hardly ever mistaken for an innocent abroad but you have to wonder if Malcolm Glazer understands just what he is getting into. The septuagenarian seems set to attempt a takeover of Manchester United. He must be one of the few men left who believe there are riches to be had in British football. It might look as if a fortune awaits, but others who mounted a raid discovered that the vault was booby-trapped.
Like the traffic fumes slowly rising above the potholed streets of Lagos, tensions are running high throughout Nigeria over recent petrol price increases. The Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC), supported by up to 30 civil-society groups, including students and lawyers, have threatened to go on strike on October 11 if the pump price of fuel is not reduced to pre-September levels.
The latest round of talks to secure a lasting peace in southern Sudan began at Naivasha in Kenya on Thursday, amid fears that ”delaying tactics” would result in their suspension — an outcome analysts predicted would have ”tragic consequences” for the entire war-ravaged region. An estimated two million people have died, and about four million have been displaced, in more than two decades of conflict.