As the HIV/Aids crisis in the region deepens, it is adding to the social decay in Zimbabwe Mercedes Sayagues Zimbabwe was billed as a peaceful country, with low crime and racial tension – far safer than South Africa. A constitutional referendum took place in February without any violence. Today, mob rule and terror reign. How […]
SOUTH African Monique Strydom, held by Muslim rebels in the Philippines for more than two weeks along with 20 other people, is pregnant, according to a Filipino abducted by the same group. Strydom, whose husband Carel is also being held by members of the Abu Sayyaf group, is two months pregnant, the Filipino hostage, Andy […]
EMPOWERMENT company African Harvest posted excellent results for the six months to March 31. Headline and attributable earnings per share on a pro forma basis grew by 36% from 14 cents to 19 cents. CEO Leon Campher said the results are very pleasing. He noted that because of the capital reduction of R5 per share […]
Jubie Matlou The Ministry of Agriculture and Land Affairs intends to create a black commercial farming class as part of its overall strategy of land reform and redistribution. This strategy is contained in a policy proposal from the ministry that calls for the establishment of a commercial farmer programme seeking to empower the country’s estimated […]
Microsoft on Wednesday filed court papers offering to change its behaviour in a move that could delay the final ruling in the anti-monopoly case brought against it by the United States government. It will also argue that the break-up of the company, as proposed by the Department of Justice and 17 US states, goes far […]
Jean Spear Microlighting is like being on a scrambler, 600m up. There is something only a microlight pilot can describe about being so high, so vulnerable, with the wind in your face and the ocean below your feet. That’s because the passenger is too busy screaming and trying to breathe. “This is proper flying,” says […]
destructing Mercedes Sayagues The owners of the town house I rent ring early on Monday morning. Their neighbour Allen Dunn was tortured and killed by a hit squad Sunday afternoon on his farm in Beatrice, 40km from Harare. Can I vacate the house in two days? They are panicking. My mouse crashed on the floor. […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Friday 4.30pm. THE rand remained weak by late afternoon, after testing the key resistance level of R7,03 to the dollar in early trade on Friday. Dealers said the dollar and negative overseas sentiment continues to weigh on the market. By 4pm the local currency was trading at R7,04 to the dollar. […]
SERGEANT Barnabas “Rogers” Jabila, a hitman for late Nigerian military ruler General Sani Abacha, has admitted killing the wife of late politician Moshood Abiola. Kudirat Abiola was assassinated on a Lagos road in June 1996 by men suspected to be members of a killer squad set up by Abacha, who died in June 1998 after […]
Robert Kirby CHANNELVISION A good deal of last week’s SABC current affairs output was given over to Mr Thabo Mbeki. In two faintly embarrassing appearances he generously donated us the benefit of his wisdom. First up was the annual State of the Nation speech, which turned out to be more a state of the state […]
Luvuyo Kakaza CD OFTHEWEEK Busi Mhlongo’s second album, Urban Zulu, released five years after her debut, Babemu, held the number-one hot spot for two hard-hitting months in the world charts, edging ahead of notable veteran Afro-beat stars such as Congolese virtuoso composer Ray Lema and Femi Kuti. Now with the release of Urban Zulu: The […]
Paul Edmunds REVIEW OFTHEWEEK Are 35 sagmakers more effective than a few well-aimed jabs? Yes and no, it would seem, in light of Soft Serve 2: Art at Play, which took place at the National Gallery in Cape Town on Friday. The boxing metaphor might seem inappropriate when recounting tales of a multimedia art happening, […]
unveiled Sarah Bullen It was fortuitously good timing for Gensec to launch its new investment in a week when the markets watched, white-knuckled, as the currency dipped to stomach-lurching lows. Particularly as the unit trusts the company unveiled, ahead of a marketing blitz aimed at the rand-phobic South African investor, promise to take your money […]
NEW Zealand’s High Commission in violence-torn Zimbabwe is fending off demands from some 400 people a day for free air tickets to New Zealand because of what Immigration Minister Lianne Dalziel says is misinformation. “Some information being reported in Zimbabwe by media there is not correct…It has been reported that New Zealand is offering free […]
The economic turmoil in Zimbabwe appears to have begun when an IMF and World Bank- inspired adjustment programme was implemented Rehad Desai News coverage from Zimbabwe has typically centred on the abuse of human rights unleashed following President Robert Mugabe’s defeat in the recent referendum. Coverage has therefore tended to produce more heat than light. […]
Children’s books must bear many re-readings Lesley Cowling The words “bedtime story” conjure up a cosy picture: mom or dad cuddled up in bed with little one, both happily absorbed in a book. The reality, of course, is quite different. The child, instead of falling off to sleep after one reading, insists on hearing the […]
Ivor Powell The SABC’s chief executive, the Reverend Hawu Mbatha, was axed this week as a major restructuring of the troubled corporation’s top management kicked into action. Senior sources in the public broadcaster said that a letter amounting to a dismissal was sent this week to Mbatha under the signature of SABC board chair Dr […]
Grant Shimmin OLYMPICS When Josia Thugwane won the marathon title at the Atlanta Olympics in 1996, it was a victory that came out of the blue, for the world of road running and for South Africans in general. He might have been the national marathon champion and have won several times in and out of […]
Forget soppy R&B and angry hip-hop – feisty Irish pop-rockers the Cranberries are in town Riaan Wolmarans In the mid-Nineties, you could not go to any decent alternative or rock club without, at some time during the evening, hearing the crashing opening chords of the Cranberries’ powerful song Zombie. Then, people would scurry to the […]
COMPANY liquidations slowed to 326 in March, down 1,8% on the same month a year ago, figures released by Statistics SA showed on Thursday. In the first three months of 2000 there were 748 liquidations, a drop of nearly 30 percent on the same period a year ago, Stats SA said. Insolvencies have also decreased […]
Tour boss has the credentials to put some backbone into the weakest of teams – he’s a former secret police chief Neal Collins in London It’s probably safe to say that Zimbabwe has recently slipped rather low in the average Englishman’s top 10 holiday destinations. Ticket sales for the first Test against the Southern Africans […]
Born in a township, she spent her first six months in jail with her mother. As a successful singer forced into exile by Pretoria, she became a symbol of resistance. Now back home and with a new album, she has become a totem of the African renaissance Maya Jaggi When Miriam Makeba left South Africa […]
If land hunger is the way blacks in Zimbabwe most acutely experience the legacy of white supremacy, in South Africa the comparable black experience is lack of access to capital. We either correct this shortcoming or we bid goodbye to any possibility of a prosperous and peaceful South Africa. Apartheid set out systematically to destroy […]
Public reaction to sentencing practices has probably had the most significant impact upon the legitimacy of the judiciary. Over the past 12 months we have witnessed considerable dissatisfaction as a result of perceived lenience in the imposition of sentences for rape. For these reasons a comprehensive report authored by leading academic Dirk van Zyl Smit […]
Andrew Worsdale Local films will be represented at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, even if they were produced and directed by foreigners. Leading the pack in the Un Certain Regard section of the festival is The King is Alive, which screens on Friday night. The film is a co-production by Lars von Trier’s Danish company […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Harare | Friday 6.00pm. GOVERNMENT, farmers and militant war veterans agreed at talks in Harare on Friday to set up a land commission to oversee the peaceful transfer of white-owned land in Zimbabwe to landless blacks. David Hasluck, director of the Commercial Farmers Union, said the proposal has been agreed at a three-hour […]
Michael Vlismas GOLF Harvey Penick, the legendary golf teacher, once said: “No pretty woman can miss a single shot without a man giving her some poor advice.” It is for this reason that a certain golf correspondent kept his mouth shut while watching Joanne Norton practice her putting earlier this year. Norton was struggling to […]
Cedric Mayson SPIRIT LEVEL A double page spread in the current issue of The Teacher highlights the challenge of religious education faced by our schools. In the old days, religious education was frequently boring, indoctrinated, or ignored. We need to bury it for good to rest in peace or pieces. Our new Constitution states that […]
A documentary about the transformation of Pretoria’s JG Strijdom Square is to be screened at a Canadian film festival Thebe Mabanga and Connie Selebogo A Pretoria-based black film-maker’s story about an apartheid-era icon is about to enjoy a world-wide audience. Pule Diphare’s JG Strijdom is Very, Very Dead will be shown at Halifax Input 2000, […]
Anyone who argues for socialism will find allies in the ANC, the party’s secretary general said this week Jaspreet Kindra African National Congress secretary general Kgalema Motlanthe this week committed the party to the cause of socialism and said South Africa should follow the Chinese and Cuban socialist models of economic policy. In a wide-ranging […]
Who better than David Ginola to replace Princess Diana as the Red Cross’s ambassador on landmine control? On the eve of his trip to Cambodia, the Gallic glory boy talks to Denis Campbell The dark sunglasses, non- descript grey clothes and floppy hat pulled down over his eyes are a poor disguise. Almost everyone in […]
DEMOCRATIC Republic of Congo President Laurent Kabila said that a transitional parliament will be inaugurated on July 1. Speaking to members of civil society and politicians, Kabila said a 300-member constituent assembly will be set up under his long-stalled democratization program. He said in the speech, which was broadcast over state radio, that he will […]