Frans Botha will be on a hiding to nothing on Saturday when he fights a great heavyweight champion Gavin Evans I suppose I should admit to some bias here: first, I feel passionately about Lennox Claudius Lewis. Second, I’m not so wild about Francois Johannes Botha. The Botha thing I can get out of the […]
Angus Begg TRAVEL Simultaneously smiling and serious, the blond forty-something wildlife exec called me over to his stall. It was the Indaba 2000 in Durban, the Southern African tourism industry’s annual showcase to the world. “You’ve got to see this,” he said, with a fair deal of enthusiasm. I already had, or so I thought […]
A BRITISH model who flew to Cape Town earlier this week to promote the plight of thousands of penguins struck by an oil spill off the Cape coast is having something of an identity crisis. The saga began when the International Fund for Animal Welfare announced Alex Gain, winner of the Sun newspaper’s Babe of […]
Evidence wa ka Ngobeni The Human Rights Commission (HRC) has given Minister of Public Enterprises Jeff Radebe three weeks to explain his attack on the Mail & Guardian at the media racism hearings, saying his accusations constitute a prima facie violation of the Bill of Rights. At the hearings in April, Radebe – on behalf […]
Glenda Daniels Occupational health and safety inspectors from the Department of Labour are resigning in droves and some have been suspended amid mounting concern about a major overhaul of the department. The exodus of staff coincides with a backlog of 5 000 unexamined accident cases, including 700 fatalities at workplaces across the country. In just […]
Robert Kirby CHANNELVISION As I begin writing this I await a call from the SABC’s ever helpful Marj Murray, who is busy finding out who was responsible for the bizarre pageant-cum- circus-cum-Sun City Showtime extravaganza which attended the formal opening of the Aids 2000 conference in Durban. The SABC itself didn’t bother to supply its […]
SAFAIR, the aviation leasing division of Imperial Holdings, announced three transactions worth more than R200-million, involving four passenger jets and a cargo aircraft. THE company has leased two McDonnell-Douglas MD81 jet airliners to Spirit Airlines, a US passenger carrier, for a period of eight years. In another deal, Safair purchased two additional ex-Austrian Airlines McDonnell-Douglas […]
JKRowling’s latest Harry Potter book, which arrives in South Africa this week, has caused hysteria in Britain. Its timing is just right Mark Lawson In a career of only three years, JK Rowling has changed book publishing. She has created a world in which novels – like new cars, grouse, Beaujolais nouveau and Star Wars […]
Tim Radford In 1999 there were more disasters than ever before and they killed more people than any year in the decade except one. According to the latest Red Cross report, there were 623 forest fires, floods, landslides, avalanches, earthquakes, tsunamis, epidemics, droughts and volcanic eruptions around the world. They did economic damage estimated at […]
Howard Barrell Minister of Education Kader Asmal takes his controversial plan to rescue South Africa’s school education system before a special meeting of all Cabinet ministers and deputy ministers in Pretoria on Tuesday (July 18) amid resistance in the African National Congress and the Cabinet. The combative Asmal, who is thought to have the support […]
A FUEL fire erupted again at the scene of the blaze in which more than 250 people died this week while villagers risked their lives scooping fuel still gushing from the vandalised duct. Flames leapt eight metres into the sky and a huge column of smoke billowed into the air above the village of Ovire […]
Paul Kirk Police are hunting for two serial killers in Durban who are believed to be responsible for the murder of four young women and the abduction and rape of at least eight girls. Durban police confirmed this week that in Greenwood Park – a suburb of central Durban – a killer has murdered at […]
Pretoria Girls High has been dragged into the sleazy underworld of crime and drugs Thuli Nhlapo and Thebe Mabanga Just a few months ago, Tanya Oosthuizen was one of South Africa’s luckiest teenagers – a bright, young and attractive brunette, head girl of one of Gauteng’s leading schools with a range of lucrative professional careers […]
Steven Friedman WORM’S EYE VIEW When will we stop relying on others to do what only we can do ourselves? As the gloom which followed the frustration of our World Cup bid set in last Thursday, an apparently unemployed man who had been listening carefully to our team’s sales pitch exclaimed: “Now we will not […]
REUTERS, Johannesburg | Wednesday 12.15pm. SOUTH Africa could harvest a near-record sugar cane crop this summer and the industry has secured its important Far East markets, according to the cane growers’ association and the latest edition of the South African Sugar Journal. Quality problems and a poor ratio of cane to sucrose pointed to the […]
Government is sticking to its growth forecast despite a low first quarter growth rate of 0.9 percent. Finance director general, Maria Ramos said the lower than expected first-quarter growth rate was largely due to the performance of agriculture although a bumper maize crop should raise the performance of this sector and allow for an overall […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Tuesday 01.00pm. IN the biggest state restructuring deal under President Mbeki’s auspices, Transnet has reached an agreement with Johnnic Holdings Limited and Johnnic Communications Limited to convert its 23% stake in MTN into shares in its holding company M-Cell Limited, listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange. Transnet will also sell 75 […]
AIDS researchers hoping to find a way for women to silently protect themselves from Aids infection were disappointed to report on Wednesday that tests showed one product actually worsened the risk. The product, a spermicide called nonoxynol-9 and marketed under the trade name Advantage S by US-based Columbia Laboratories Inc, did not protect women in […]
SIX of the world’s biggest international trade and finance organizations will reform a four-year-old program to help the world’s poorest nations integrate into the global economy. The reorganization was prompted by criticism from independent experts who said that the programme was weak in administration and failed to link efforts to improve trade to the overall […]
A MUSLIM rebel chief holding 20 mostly foreign hostages told the government he is ready to resolve the nearly three-month-long hostage crisis, the Philippines’ chief negotiator said on Tuesday. Presidential adviser Roberto Aventajado, head of Manila’s negotiating team, said rebel commander Galib Andang called him using the satellite phone of a three-member French television crew […]
De Beers will undergo a major transformation as the company moves from being a custodian of the diamond market to a preferred supplier. This week it will outline its new strategy where the company plans to formalise long-standing gentlemen’s agreements with its diamond trading partners that will see benefits for all parties. It is believed […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Tuesday 01.00pm. WALKER, a US e-business and financial solutions company, has entered into a joint venture with local IT firm Gijima Info Tech, in a move to secure a significant portion of South Africa’s market for large-scale financial applications. In this deal worth in excess of R500-million a year the Walker […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Tuesday 03.15pm. South African motorists could expect the high fuel price to remain high for some time despite recent decreases in the price of crude oil, Mineral and Energy Affairs Minister Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka said. She told a media conference that the drop in the price of crude oil by US1.20 was […]
FRESH violence has erupted in Nigeria’s commercial capital Lagos, with two people killed and several injured in a clash at the city’s international airport, police and witnesses said. Lagos Police Commissioner Mike Okiro said more police had been deployed to reinforce security at the airport, where customs men and shipping agents fought on Monday over […]
IN AN ongoing power battle, the Hong Kong-backed bidder for South Africa’s third mobile phone licence, Nextcom, launched an urgent court action to prevent Saudi-backed consortium Cell-C from winning the lucrative licence. The court action seeks to prevent Telecoms Minister Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri from endorsing a recommendation by Satra to pick Cell-C, said Nextcom’s spokesperson. The […]
A BRITISH pilot died and nine people including three American tourists were injured when their hot air balloon caught fire on Wednesday as they prepared to fly over Kenya’s Maasai Mara safari park. The luxury game-spotting flight ended in disaster at six a.m. when the balloon operated by Transworld Safaris burst into flames as it […]
VESTACOR, which operates as an investment capital fund is to acquire the interests, loan accounts and cash of sports goods retailer Moresport for R173m, or 70 cents a share. Vestacor said that after the disposal of Totalsports, Moresport did not have the required critical mass and immediate profitability necessary for a listed company to attract […]
SINGAPORE said on Tuesday it will send a team of zoologists to South Africa to help care for 18000 penguins drenched in an oil spill off Cape Town. The Singapore Zoological Gardens said in a statement the team will consist of a senior veterinarian and penguin keepers from the zoo and the Jurong Bird Park.”This […]
ZIMBABWE’S leading business associations have urged President Robert Mugabe to trim the size of his cabinet to cut public spending. In a report obtained by AFP on Tuesday, seven private sector groups urged Mugabe to cut the number of cabinet posts from 52 to 15. Mugabe’s ruling Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) […]
THE national government and the private sector have donated R2-million to renovate 18 Mpumalanga schools that were damaged by floods early this year. Mpumalanga education spokesman Peter Maminza said on Tuesday that the donation would initially be spent on schools affected in the Nelspruit, Malelane and Hazyview districts. Maminza said his department was also negotiating […]
THE Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the transnational pharmaceutical corporation Merck have announced a 100-million-dollar grant to fight Aids in Botswana. The donation will fund a program in co-operation with the Botswana government aimed at prevention, management and treatment of the disease. Botswana has one of the highest rates of Aids in the world, […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Friday 11.45am. GOVERNMENT’S decision against imposing a hotel levy to fund tourism should give the accommodation industry a welcome boost. Finance Minister Trevor Manuel said he turned down a request for such a dedicated levy from the Tourism Department because it would further fragment tourism promotion, was not market-related and would […]