POP megastar Michael Jackson is close to signing an agreement to purchase a quarter share in Sun International, the company that operates Sun City, SABC TV news reports. The report said the North-West Development Corporation is keen to sell its Sun International shares to Jackson to raise funding for development projects. The report said an […]
Ann Eveleth The head of a KwaZulu-Natal police unit that allegedly failed to respond to warnings before the Christmas 1995 Shobashobane massacre has been promoted to lead police crime prevention efforts on the province’s South Coast ahead of the elections. Superintendent Jan Botha was head of the Umzimkulu region’s internal security unit (ISU) at the […]
Ann Eveleth Four years ago President Nelson Mandela jetted into Weenen – the “place of weeping” – to preach the gospel of government land reform to an audience of landless farmworkers, insecure labour tenants and recalcitrant white farmers. Launching KwaZulu-Natal’s R35-million pilot land reform programme in 1995, Mandela promised to reverse land apartheid and bridge […]
Over the next two weeks 59 tons of African ivory will be sold to Japan. Leading elephant researchers argue this could open the door to wider elephant slaughter Three shipments of 59,1 tons of ivory will be auctioned and sold to Japanese traders in the next two weeks, in terms of a recent international decision […]
Are you a good citizen? Do you prefer Hansa to Castle? Market research reveals it all to the advertising industry, reports David le Page How do marketers and advertisers decide whether their bombardment of messages, subliminal or otherwise, is sinking into our collective consciousness with sufficient force to make their efforts worthwhile and cost-effective? Well, […]
THE Democratic Republic of Congo’s central bank has devalued the Congolese franc, dropping its exchange rate to the dollar from 2,9 to 4,5, a fall of 55%. The new rate, announced on Wednesday, is “realistic,” according to Finance Minister Bemba Saolona. The devaluation comes on the heels of price hikes of up to 500% for […]
people. This is our story’ Last week Charlene Smith was raped and left tied up in her own bathroom. But that was just the beginning of her ordeal. By telling the story of that painful night, she hopes to raise awareness of the way rape `victims’ are treated Every 26 seconds in South Africa a […]
A RIGHTWINGER, who earlier this year received amnesty for 32 acts of terror, on Friday threatened to resume bombings in solidarity with Chris Hani’s assassins who were denied amnesty earlier this week for the SA Communist Party leader’s murder. Dries Kriel, secretary-general of the Boereweerstandsbeweging, in a statement on Friday said he wanted the Truth […]
Fears are growing that Angola’s civil war could spill over its borders following reports that Zambia is aiding Unita. Ivor Powell reports New evidence has come to light implicating President Frederick Chiluba’s Zambian government in aiding Jonas Savimbi’s rebel Unita movement in neighbouring Angola. Indications have also surfaced of Ugandan troops seconded in support of […]
Grim new demographic details show that life for most South Africans is not getting better, and may well be getting worse. With an estimated 4,7-million people unemployed and looking for work, and only 5,1-million in formal employment, it is hardly surprising that life remains tough for ordinary people in the democratic South Africa. But it […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Durban | Friday 6.00pm. DOUBLE Olympic gold medallist Penny Heyns swam her second fastest 200m breaststroke ever in 2:25,84 at the national swimming championships in Durban on Friday, just missing her Olympic and African mark of 2:25,41. Free State’s Ryk Neethling broke the African record in the men’s 100m freestyle, dramatically coming from […]
The World Health Organisation on Friday confirmed a polio outbreak in Angola which has reportedly paralysed 200 children, but the agency said it still aimes to eradicate the disease globally by the end of 2000. The agency said virology experts in South Africa had confirmed polio after examining stool samples taken from the paralysed children […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, United Nations | Friday 7.30pm. THE United States announced Thursday that it would soon hold its first official talks with Libya since breaking off diplomatic relations in 1981. State Department spokesman James Rubin stressed to reporters in Washington that the meeting at ambassador level would not be bilateral, but would also involve the […]
Once peopled by white males, expeditions to the wild places south of us are increasingly taking on black and female adventurers, writes Charl de Villiers No island, no matter how remote, is immune to South Africa’s “rainbow revolution”. The administrators of the South African National Antarctic Programme (Sanap) have just fielded the first black woman […]
ANGOLAN authorities are opposed to setting up humanitarian corridors for civilians affected by the civil war, government sources said on Wednesday. The United Nations World Food Programme supports such measures in order to ensure essential food can be distributed. But the government believes the current military situation precludes the setting up of the corridors. The […]
David Shapshak While cellphones are leaping forward, the big business players who determine which protocols they operate on have been lagging behind. Developments for the next, or third, generation of cellphones have been stalled while the two dominant players, Europe and the United States, were deadlocked over which of their protocols should be the new […]
There’s no escaping it.You’ve dabbled in the Internet, made a few trades and earned a few bucks. You think you’re pretty good. You’re not alone. The ease and low cost of trading over the Internet coupled with the boom in major stock markets have convinced many people that they’re the greatest traders of all time […]
THE Cape Bar Council on Friday amended its constitution to provide for the guaranteed minimum representation of women and black members. The decision was taken at a special meeting attended by all members of the council, CBC chairman Jeremy Gauntlett said in a statement. Gauntlett said the council apporved a year’s “experiment” where at least […]
PLAY was suspended in Augusta, Georgia late on Thursday at the 63rd US Masters due to inclement weather, with more than one third of the field still on the course. Lightning was spotted in the area of Augusta National Golf Club. Americans Davis Love, Brandel Chamblee and Scott McCarron shared the clubhouse lead at three-under […]
Dan Atkinson in London Warren Buffet – a chap who ought to know – once described the stock market as being merely a reference point, allowing investors to check whether anyone was offering to do anything foolish. Much the same could be said of the gold price which, most of the time, indicates whether, in […]
THE Truth Commission faces a legal battle over its selling the Final Report to publishers Jutas, despite the report’s own recommendation that it “be made available in the widest possible way”. Jutas are selling the report for R750, a price set by the commission itself. Steve Crawford runs the Truth Commission’s own website, and has […]
HIGH courts have started the process of resentencing some of the 350 prisoners on death row, Justice Minister Dullah Omar’s office said on Thursday. In terms of the 1997 Criminal Law Amendment Act, death row prisoners who have exhausted all avenues of appeal and review must return to the courts where they were originally sentenced […]
Jonathan Jones One day last August the great photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson opened his copy of Le Monde and was shocked by what he saw. There next to each other were two pictures – one of his old friend Pablo Picasso, the other of a new car, the Citron Xsara Picasso, bearing not just Picasso’s name […]
Gabon have not lost at home for 28 years, so Bafana Bafana face an uphill battle at the Omar Bongo stadium, writes Andrew Muchineripi South Africa enter hillier terrain on Saturday after a relatively flat passage through the first half of their qualifying programme for the 2000 African Nations Cup. Gabon may, ultimately, have been […]
THURSDAY, 1.00PM: TOURING Super 12 teams that have grown used to having the red carpet rolled out for them by the Natal Rugby Union will be disappointed. The NRU has decided to give all Super 12 teams the cold shoulder after the suspension of flanker Wickus van Heerden’s 18 month ban for biting New South […]
Total originality, explosive energy and plenty of brain power have all played a part in the rapid rise of Boo! to South African stardom, writes Andrea Burgener For a rare few seconds, Princess Leonie’s tight-as-a-tourniquet drum rhythms are still. Chris Chameleon, lead singer and self-proclaimed resident polysexual of Boo! is remonstrating with the cheering, applauding […]
Adam Mars-Jones SINGLE & SINGLE by John le Carr (Hodder &Stoughton) There have been a dozen books since The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, and still John le Carr seems like a butterfly escaped from the chrysalis of the genre novel but afraid to spread his wings, more than half regretting the old […]
KENYAN security forces have closed the border with southern Somalia’s Bulo-Hawo district to stop fighting between factions of the Somali Nation Front from spilling into Kenya, police officials said on Friday. Kenyan security started preventing people from crossing the border from Somalia on Thursday after the killing in Bula-Hawo of SNF faction leader Ali Nur […]
extremism The country’s first election since the genocide was an important test for Hutus and Tutsis. Chris McGreal reports from Rubona Sosthene Niyitegeka is an unsung hero of the Rwandan genocide. After the killing began five years ago this month, the Hutu shopkeeper cajoled, bribed and blackmailed dozens of his neighbours into sheltering Tutsis from […]
FORMER SA Defence Force special forces member Noel Robey told the Truth and Reconciliation Commission on Thursday how Mamelodi activists Dr Fabian Ribeiro and his wife Florence were murdered in 1986. Robey told the TRC’s amnesty committee that the murders were committed by two unknown special forces members from Northern Namibia. He said he was […]
AN Egyptian and a Tanzanian suspected of taking part in the deadly bombing of the United States embassy in the Tanzanian capital Dar es Salaam last year are due to appear before a resident magistrate again on Friday. This development in the drawn-out case follows the release by the United States FBI of a long-awaited […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Friday 91.30am. CONTROVERSIAL playwright Mbongeni Ngema’s estate was sequestrated in the Pietermaritzburg High Court on Thursday in the wake the Sarafina II Aids play debacle. The sequestration follows legal action by the Heath Special Investigation Unit in its continued attempts to to recover some R14-million in taxpayers’ money spent on the […]