Cape Town

President Thabo Mbeki needs to ”talk straight and hard” with his Zimbabwean counterpart, Robert Mugabe, during his current visit to that country, the Democratic Alliance said on Thursday. ”The suffering people of Zimbabwe are looking to South Africa to come to their rescue,” said a DA spokesperson.

The largest ”wine by the glass” wine bar in the world, called Belthazar, has opened recently at the V&A Waterfront in Cape Town, bringing the concept of ”shoppertainment” to South Africa for the first time. It offers up to 100 of the Cape’s finest wines by the glass.

President Thabo Mbeki will travel to Harare on Thursday to meet with President Robert Mugabe on Zimbabwe’s ongoing political and economic crisis. Presidential spokesperson Bheki Khumalo has confirmed Mbeki’s visit but stressed that South Africa will not harden its stance on Zimbabwe.

South Africa’s tourism industry is currently under pressure from a number of negative factors, the most significant of which is the lack of airline capacity, according to Helder Pereira, managing director of Southern Sun hotels. However, Pereira believes South Africa’s outlook for the peak season and into 2004 remains good.

The Democratic Alliance has strongly criticised President Thabo Mbeki’s plans to visit Haiti for that nation’s bicentennial celebrations on January 1 next year. It has been announced that South Africa has offered Haiti R10-million ”as material support” for its celebrations.

Anglican Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu said on Monday that he was baffled at events at the recent Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Nigeria, where Zimbabwe’s suspension from the Commonwealth was extended. ”I am afraid I do not understand on what grounds an appeal for the lifting of the suspension could have been made,” Tutu said.

South African Deputy President Jacob Zuma has called for increased access for African-produced goods and services into the huge and lucrative Chinese market. Zuma spoke at the China-Africa Cooperation Forum in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa on Monday.

While President Thabo Mbeki on Friday lashed out at the Commonwealth’s failure to address the root cause of Zimbabwe’s political and economic crisis, the Democratic Alliance says he has ”completely lost the plot”. A DA spokesperson said Mbeki’s views are a disgusting defence of a disgraceful tyrant.

President Thabo Mbeki has lashed out at the Commonwealth for failing to address the land question in Zimbabwe — the root cause of the Southern African country’s current turmoil. Mbeki said that except when used to highlight the plight of the white farmer, the land issue is no longer discussed.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=28549">DA: ‘Mbeki has lost the plot'</a>
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=28486">Mugabe’s defeat is Mbeki’s, too</a>

Listed retailer Edgars Consolidated Stores (Edcon), already South Africa’s largest retail group by turnover, has acquired the business of Boardmans from fellow retailer Pick ‘n Pay for approximately R94-million. It is the second major acquisition by Edcon in 2003, following its purchase of more than 100 CNA stores.

Cape Town T-shirt company Laugh It Off was back in court on Thursday, fighting a demand that it put up security for its coming Supreme Court of Appeal hearing. Laugh It Off is challenging a Cape High Court ruling earlier this year that one of its satirical T-shirts infringed the Black Label trademark of beer giant SABMiller.

The Advertising Standards Authority in South Africa has banned the Post Office from inviting children to write to Father Christmas, on the grounds that it is misleading the youngsters. The ruling follows a complaint about a Post Office TV commercial giving children an address at which they can write to Santa Claus.

An amateur botanist has discovered a new flower, a member of the iris family, near Kleinmond on the southern Cape coast. The plant, a species of ixia, was found by Louis Mostert on an area of private land that had been cleared of alien vegetation for the first time in about 40 years.

South African President Thabo Mbeki has questioned the commitment of the United Nations to guaranteeing international peace, especially in Africa. ”Our experience of the discharge of their responsibilities in regard to conflicts on the [African] continent has not always been positive,” the president said.