THE Cape High Court has refused to grant bail to People Against Gangsterism and Drugs leader Abdus-Salaam Ebrahim, arrested in December. Ebrahim, 41, is facing charges of murder — including the public lynching of gang boss Rashaad Staggie in August 1996 – public violence, intimidation, attempted murder, unlawful possession of a firearm, extortion and conspiracy […]
NIGERIAN President Olusegun Obasanjo is holding crisis talks to prevent a second nationwide public sector strike within a month, as industrial unrest spread in the country. The governors of Nigeria’s 36 states met in Abuja on Monday and issued a communique agreeing to pay their lowest paid workers a minimum of 5500 naira (55 dollars) […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Harare | Monday 5.30pm. ZIMBABWE could need food aid within months unless its government pushes through urgently needed economic reforms, Britain’s junior foreign minister, Peter Hain, warned on Monday. He told a Foreign Office press briefing that it was vital President Robert Mugabe began working with the World Bank and the International Monetary […]
FIVE women bus passengers were injured — two of them seriously — when gunmen opened fire on a bus in Khayelitsha on Saturday morning, Golden Arrow Bus Services spokeswoman Jeanne Welsh said. Welsh said the bus was driving in Block 23 around 7.15am when the incident happened. Three people sustained cuts and bruises from shattered […]
The ‘countertrade’ component of South Africa’s weapons package is in danger of falling through Ivor Powell Promises by foreign companies and governments to organise substantial investments in the South African economy in exchange for weapons contracts are going sour – before the government’s controversial R32-billion arms deal is even finalised. Government sources defending the weapons […]
sales Glenda Daniels While the government’s final plan for the restructuring of state assets will be released within weeks – about two months later than scheduled and with labour organisations demanding a moratorium – it is expected that the motions of consultation will take place before the massive privatisation steamrolls ahead. Labour organisations has not […]
Mark Ouma Banyana Banyana aim to secure the future of women’s soccer in South Africa by putting up an inspiring performance when South Africa hosts the African Cup of Nations in October. Aware of the enormous challenge that lies ahead, the national women’s team are determined to overcome the odds stacked against them and perform […]
THE Central Bank of Swaziland said on Thursday it has eased exchange controls in a bid to boost foreign investment in its capital market. The bank said it has scrapped the requirements that non-residents seek its approval to invest in quoted companies and repatriate their profits. Non-residents still have to seek central bank approval to […]
Howard Barrell and Barry Streek Will the Democratic Alliance (DA) make inroads into the black community? We might not. There is a degree of risk involved in this or any other such arrangement. There always is. It is a certainty that we were putting ourselves into a political glass ceiling by continuing this war between […]
Barry Streek Craftswomen from the rural areas of KwaZulu-Natal will be exhibiting their products at this month’s international conference on Aids in Durban as a result of a unique project to promote HIV/Aids awareness through design. The Rural Craft and HIV/Aids Awareness project has been operating in KwaZulu- Natal, the region with the highest reported […]
The South African cricket team goes to Sri Lanka on its first tour since the Hansie Cronje scandal broke Peter Robinson Not so much the man who would be king as the man who had to be king, Shaun Pollock will carry a fair bit of excess baggage in his coffin when he flies off […]
Nawaal Deane Hamid “Banjo” Cassim, the Johannesburg sweetshop owner at the centre of the cricket scandal, has converted his ordeal before the King commission into a business coup. Biltong sales at his Fordsburg shop have been booming since the widespread publicity afforded him by the match- fixing saga. To cash in, he has repackaged his […]
AN African warrior, stuffed, preserved and on show in Spain for 100 years, is going home for burial after a Haitian doctor complained to the United Nations at the undignified treatment of his remains. Thus ends a dispute which rose to the level of an international diplomatic incident with several African states challenging the right […]
to how the votes will fall Nawaal Deane Voting to decide the host of the 2006 soccer World Cup will take place in three rounds through a process of elimination, with the country receiving the fewest votes falling out of the bidding after each round. All executive members of the Federation of International Football Association […]
Barry Streek Price Waterhouse Coopers has compiled a scathing report on labour relations in Parliament, painting a picture of an institution wracked by inefficiency and tension. The report says that instead of collaboration between the different divisions in Parliament, “there is at best an ad hoc application of human resources development funds that often create […]
Khadija Magardie The Commission for Gender Equality (CGE) has appointed as its new CEO a junior management consultant with no background in gender politics after he drafted a glowing report on the commission’s activities and eulogised its senior management. The consultant, Zith Mahaye, was recruited to advise the commission on ways to improve its image. […]
Charl Pretorius HORSERACING Nine months ago Badger’s Coast was a maiden – a horse that had not yet managed to win a race. Amazingly, just two months later he rose to fame by becoming only the second three-year-old in 45 years to capture the prestigious J&B Met at Kenilworth. This Saturday Badger’s Coast could add […]
SIXTY people were killed when their bus was swept away in floods caused by torrential rains. Police said the bus, travelling from the capital to Harar in the east, was caught in floodwaters near Wollenchiti, 125 km south of Addis Ababa. The bus was carrying 66 people. The bodies of 60, including three children and […]
Anthropolgists looking at the dawn of the 21st century may surmise that we were schizophrenic: a society that idealised childhood, but demonised problematic, sexualised adolescents. New research suggests that the first dark signs of adolescence – menstrual blood and pubic hair – are now often occurring in children as young as eight or nine. Whither […]
Graham Hayman CROSSFIRE Red tape at the Medicines Control Council (MCC) is reported to be standing in the way of the registration of complementary medicines and African traditional medicine in the organisation’s databank. Complementary medicines (CMs) form part of the rapidly expanding worldwide market for non-prescription medicines. CMs include traditional herbal medicines (both African and […]
intact and subdued Howard Barrell On his desk, atop a clutter of scattered papers, lay a copy of Sun Tzu’s The Art of War, the ancient Chinese text on how to have your cake and eat it on the battlefield. Behind his desk, the senior Democratic Party official was up and down in his chair […]
The head of the CAA allegedly contravened the Civil Aviation Act by not reporting an aircraft incident Sechaba ka’Nkosi Beleaguered Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) boss Trevor Abrahams, who was arrested this week in connection with the fraudulent issuing of pilot licences, allegedly sought to cover up a crash involving an airplane he was flying. Documents […]
SOUTH Africa and Botswana have signed a bilateral military pact on defence and security, SABC radio news reported on Friday. Speaking at the signing ceremony in Gaberone, SA Defence Minister Mosiuoa Lekota said the time had come for Africa to control and manage its political and military conflicts. The agreement would bind the two countries […]
As health budgets are cut to the bone, a hospital in KwaZulu-Natal is pioneering community-based care for people with HIV/Aids Khadija Magardie An unzipped first-aid kit lies on an empty table in the Community Outreach Centre at St Mary’s Hospital in Marianhill, KwaZulu-Natal. The kit comprises some bleached, carefully packaged sterile instruments, a pair of […]
history Maggie O’Kane in Belfast When Cyril Ramaphosa arrived at his office in Johannesburg at 11.30am on Tuesday June 27, he ended a seven-day journey that took him across the world and into Ireland’s history books. He is a witness to what may finally be the end of 30 years of violence, human loss and […]
David Beresford ANOTHER COUNTRY The Chief Chief, House of Lords c/o Cricket Ground, Marylebone, Great Britain, Overseas URGENT AND IN YE UTMOST CONFIDENCE Dear Chief Lord and/or Chief Lady, We write to acquaint you with a dread Affliction which has befallen the Spirit of the Game, the said game being Ye Olde Sporte of Cricket […]
The applications of biotechnology have provoked debate about its ethics. Richard Holloway looks at some of the issues One way to classify people is by the tumbler test: pessimists say it is half empty, optimists half full. In most of the great debates about human nature people place themselves somewhere on the continuum between these […]
SOUTH Africa is to host the biggest aerospace and defence exhibition ever to be staged in Africa in early September, the SA Air Force said on Friday. SAAF chief Lieutenant-General Roelf Beukes said the show at Waterkloof air base near Pretoria would feature about 250 exhibitors from all over the world. Briefing reporters at the […]
Earlier this year doctors made history, using their knowledge of the genome to treat a child with a congenital condition James Meek Last February an air of euphoria seeped into the corridors of the Necker hospital for sick children in the Montparnasse district of Paris. Wondrous cures, great courage and the heart-hollowing grief of parents […]
financier Justin Arenstein Former Mpumalanga premier Mathews Phosa distanced himself from shady “freelance” financier Jean Mopotu this week following revelations that the Zairian tried to source funding for Phosa’s ambitious R390-million casino development in Mozambique. Mopotu attained notoriety in 1998 when he helped international fraud fugitive and suspected chemi- cal weapons dealer Moshe Regen- streich […]
losses Glenda Daniels ‘I might be earning cents at the moment, but it’s early days and it’s better than sitting at home and starving,” says thirtysomething single mother Joyce Moemedi, who has joined a small-business project to learn mosaic skills after 10 years of unemployment. Moemedi, who once had no skills, is now general secretary […]
Iden Wetherell Zimbabweans are this week treating what is officially a win for President Robert Mugabe’s Zanu-PF party in the general election as a triumph for the opposition. Zanu-PF retained power by hanging on to 62 of the 120 elected seats in last weekend’s poll. But it lost 57 seats to the Movement for Democratic […]