Barry Streek The government has released details of its R374-million Community Based Public Works Programme (CBPWP) for the current financial year, including a R50-million programme to involve unemployed young people in making government buildings accessible to disabled people. It has also allocated R6-million for repairs to roads and bridges damaged by the floods earlier this […]
PRESIDENT Thabo Mbeki flew to Europe on Thursday for meetings in Germany and Denmark with world leaders where he is expected to push Africa’s development agenda. Mbeki will carry with him the message that he delivered to the United Kingdom and United States during visits there this month — that Africa needs international assistance to […]
Chris Louw I read a book, I wrote a letter, and a floodgate opened. That would be the simplistic way of looking at an episode that has dominated the Afrikaans dailies’ letters pages for the past month. Because the overwhelming reaction to my open letter to Dr Willem de Klerk after reading his book Afrikaners: […]
Job-sharing in today’s hi-tech workplace is a flexi-work trend overseas, and it’s beginning to take off in South Africa Glenda Daniels If just one boss is more than enough of a headache, imagine two or three. But many workers worldwide, and in South Africa, are hopping aboard the globalisation fast-train and dealing with the changing […]
Paul Kirk The ease with which a child molester can escape prosecution came into sharp focus this week when a lowly suspected car thief was caught red-handed with a sensitive and stolen police investigation docket into the rape of a teenage girl. Had the docket not been recovered the rapist may well have escaped scot-free […]
Donna Block TAKING STOCK I love New York. It’s the city that never sleeps – I’ve been doing very little of that myself – and has a vibe that can’t be matched anywhere else in the world. Springtime here is wonderful. Everything has a clean, fresh feel to it. Birds are singing, if you can […]
ETHIOPIA and Eritrea mulled peace proposals before resuming indirect talks in Algiers on Friday, but Addis Ababa reported renewed fighting a day after it declared their two-year-old border war over. The Ethiopian government accused Eritrea of attacking its positions on the eastern front on Thursday, saying Eritrean shellfire has killed two civilians and wounded eight. […]
Stefaans Brmmer When asked about his daughter’s death, Captain Ntlele produces a map depicting each smallholding in the area west of Iscor’s Vanderbijlpark steel plant. His own plot is marked blue, which carries the legend: “Exceeds standard. Possible Iscor source.” His wife, Tina Ntlele, takes up the story: “Brenda got sick in May 1997. She […]
Gregory Mthembu-Salter Rwanda played host this week to one of the largest and most ambitious cultural events ever seen in the country – a festival of “memory against forgetting”. The Fest’Africa – in Rwanda’s capi-tal Kigali, and the university town of Butare – brought together authors, artists and film- makers from all over the continent […]
Ivor Powell With Parliament gearing up to act and the auditor general questioning the probity of the process, the lid could finally be coming off South Africa’s controversial R32-billion weapons procurement programme after a report in the Mail & Guardian last week (“Nepotism in R32bn arms deal”) showing irregularities in the awarding of contracts. Both […]
Chris Roper REVIEW OFTHEWEEK Damn, that Brett Murray is a funny guy! The unveiling of his Africa sculpture in Cape Town last Friday was a delicious occasion, marked in equal parts by mirth and blank incomprehension. The 3-m high statue, an Ivorian curio figure with Bart Simpson heads growing out of it, occupies a space […]
THE petrol price is to rise by 8c a litre on Wednesday. The Department of Mineral and Energy Affairs said on Friday that the wholesale price of diesel will decline by 6c a litre and that of illuminating paraffin will drop by 4c per litre. From Wednesday, 93 octane will cost R3,31 per litre in […]
Nedlac is a statutory body that was set up by an Act of Parliament in 1995 for labour, business, government and community to reach consensus on issues related to socio- economic policy. Nedlac is funded by the Department of Labour and gets R6,7-million a year, about four times less than the Gender Commission and the […]
David Le Page The notebook computer market could be in for a shock following Microsoft’s launch of its new Pocket PC system, which was demonstrated at the Computer Faire in Midrand last week. The shock is that for half the price, mobile computer users are going to be able to get most of the functionality […]
Barry Streek The government has saved R45- million in rationalising and reducing the use of energy in some government buildings in Pretoria and Cape Town, says Deputy Minister of Public Works Buyi Nzimande. In some buildings savings of more than 25% of energy costs had been achieved, she said in Parliament during the discussions of […]
Barry Streek David Barnard, who pioneered the Human Science Research Council’s Programme for Development Research (Prodder) development information service, has been appointed as the executive director of the Southern African Non-Governmental Organisation Network. Barnard, who has been Prodder’s co- ordinator for eight years, said the Prodder programme had grown from a development information initiative with […]
Deon Potgieter BOXING If you looked at Zolani Petelo’s fistic career three years ago, you could easily have questioned whether the likeable Eastern Cape boxer had much of a future in the sport. Yet he is now the only South African boxer rated internationally as the best in his division and makes the fifth defence […]
Cameron Duodu LETTER FROM THE NORTH Last week I faced a dilemma. I was invited to go on the radio to discuss an article in the London Daily Telegraph entitled “Sooner or later, Africa must face some form of recolonisation”. I told the BBC that the idea of recolonising Africa was so preposterous that I […]
Antony Barnett, James Meikle and John Vidal A zoologist has found evidence that genes used to modify crops can jump the species barrier and cause bacteria to mutate. A four-year study by Professor Hans- Hinrich Kaatz found that the alien gene used to modify oilseed rape had transferred to bacteria living in the guts of […]
Jubie Matlou and Evidence wa ka Ngobeni A showdown is looming between the government and the Congress of South African Students (Cosas) over the role of the student organisation in the disruption of education in schools. The government is considering a relook at the role of Cosas in the proper running and governance of schools […]
Robert Kirby CHANNELVISION It would seem that with the arrival in its boardrooms of the Rembrandt group, e.tv has had a welcome injection of hard cash. It would seem also that, like the unexpected benefice of a wealthy relative’s will, all the delicious lolly is being spent like there’s no tomorrow. The first signs of […]
lottery cash Barry Streek More than 8E000 NGOs have been registered in terms of the Non-profit Organisations Act, Minister of Welfare and Population Development Zola Skweyiya has disclosed. This is far short of his own department’s estimate of between 45E000 and 80E000 non- profit organisations (NPOs) in South Africa, but it is a significant achievement […]
Andy Capostagno RUGBY It is now time to acknowledge that all of us have been guilty of damning the Super 12 champions of the past three years with faint praise. The Crusaders entered all three finals as rank outsiders and then beat the Blues (20-13), the Highlanders (24-19) and now the Brumbies (20-19). By which […]
Zanu-PF land-grab policy Jaspreet Kindra African National Congress secretary general Kgalema Motlanthe this week endorsed Zanu-PF’s stand on land appropriation, denying the ruling Zimbabwean party was manipulating the issue for electoral purposes. Motlanthe said in an interview the situation in Zimbabwe had suffered from “misrepresentation of facts” by the media, claiming press reports had inflated […]
Luvuyo Kakaza World-famous singer Miriam Makeba’s career has reached a new exuberant pitch with her latest release, Homeland (Putumayo). Recorded in South Africa, it features a range of local talents: Themba Mkhize (keyboards), Louis Mhlanga and Mauritz Lotz (guitar), Prince Lengoasa (trumpet), Barney Rachabane (alto saxophone), Kwazi Shange (drums), Mandla Zikalala (bass guitar) McCoy Mrubata […]
debutants Liam Botham (22, just signed to play on the wing for Newcastle): After a lengthy debate with his cricketing legend dad Ian over whether to play for England or Wales (where, until last month, he was turning out for champions Cardiff), he turned out for England A during the Six Nations and scored tries […]
Grant Shimmin OLYMPICS I’m not too sure where or how the phrase “nothing ventured, nothing gained” originated, but if I met someone now who’d somehow never heard that well-worn saying before, I could probably go some way to convincing him that it was coined for Colleen Orsmond and Helen Fleming. It could well have been […]
Jaspreet Kindra The African National Congress has spoken out against the building of a “black bourgeoisie” – contradicting the stance taken by President Thabo Mbeki on the issue. The shift in the party’s stance is spelled out in one of its discussion documents for the ANC general council in Port Elizabeth next month. The party […]
KERRY Bee scored a stinging equaliser in the dying minutes to give South Africa’s hockey women a 2-2 draw against Argentina at the Champions Trophy at Amstelveen in Amsterdam on Wednesday. The Pumas led 2-0 at the break in a fast-paced game that the Argentines dominated in the first half. Laura Maiztegui opened the scoring […]
THE South African men’s hockey team, barred from competing in the Sydney Olympics by the National Olympic Commission of South Africa will know on Monday whether they will be allowed to compete. Nocsa will meet with the SA Hockey Association to discuss whether the team will be allowed to go to the Games. The team […]
THE International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda on Thursday sentenced former radio presenter Georges Ruggiu to 12 years in prison, after he pleaded guilty to inciting genocide. Ruggiu, a Rwandan of Italian and Belgian descent, worked for the Hutu extremist radio station Mille Collines, which incited Hutus to kill minority Tutsis and moderate Hutus. The 1994 […]
SOUTH Africa’s 2006 World Cup Bid has received a welcome boost from Brazil — also in the running to host the showpiece. The Brazilians may hand over their support to South Africa, with the South Africans returning the favour should Brazil bid for the 2010 Cup, said bid ambassador, Zico. The former Brazilian international wants […]