While it can hardly be denied that striking public-service workers are struggling to make ends meet, is the government justified in stonewalling their demands?
Former United Nations chief Kofi Annan took the helm on Thursday of an alliance of African government and business leaders seeking to reverse a decline in the continent’s agricultural output. Sub-Saharan African food production was declining year-on-year as a third of the continent’s population suffers from hunger, Annan told reporters.
Japan’s Mitsubishi Heavy Industries said on Thursday that it had started renting out its "<i>wakamaru</i>" robots to work at the front desk of offices, hospitals and other places in need of the humanoid touch. The robot, which is 1m tall and weighs 30kg, is available to rent for a mere 120Â 000 yen ($1 000) a day for up to five days.
Almost 300-million people worldwide are now accessing the internet using fast broadband connections, fuelling the growth of social networking services such as <a href="http://www.myspace.com" target="_blank" class="standardtext"><i>MySpace</i></a> and generating thousands of hours of video through websites such as <a href="http://www.youtube.com" target="_blank" class="standardtext"><i>YouTube</i></a>.
Now here’s a publication to warm our mid-winter hearts. Here are 100-and-something young South Africans you have to take to lunch. And if not to lunch, certainly to have in your sights and on your Rolodexes. This is the second year of our publication and it grows from strength to strength.
Since April this year, the African National Congress Youth League and trade union Solidarity have been discussing whether the youth should be exempt from affirmative action. Here, two youth leaders — Solidarity’s Dirk Hermann and the league’s Zizi Kodwa — debate whether affirmative action should apply to those born after 1994.
Nikiwe Bikitsha, Regan Thaw, Bongani B Nxumalo, Mandy Wiener, Uveka Rangappa, Nontyatyambo Petros, Koketso Sachane, Redi Direko, Unathi Batyashe-Fillis, Thomas Sipho Mlambo, Africa Melane, Siki Mgabadeli, Tsepiso Makwetla, Damon Stapleton and Grant Nash.
Raenette Taljaard, Tshilidzi Marwala, Stuart Wilson, Zandile Mciza, Karin Jacobs, Mamokgethi Setati and Carol Simon.
"June 16 is about remembering the past, because it is also the future. It represents a turning point for South Africa." Suntosh Pillay, Dean Horwitz and Cindy Kotzé took to the corridors of the University of KwaZulu-Natal, the University of Cape Town and Mandela Metropolitan University and asked students what June 16 meant to them.
Tlhabeli Ralebitso and Godfrey Mbingo.
South African President Thabo Mbeki gave his clearest indication yet on Wednesday of his preferred choice of successor, heaping praise on his official deputy, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka. Mbeki, who has previously said he would like a woman to succeed him, told Parliament Mlambo-Ngcuka was "a true leader of the people".
A high crime rate, unreliable electricity supply and inflexible labour laws saw South Africa drop six places over two years on a global economic competitiveness barometer released on Wednesday. Ranked 46th overall out of 128 countries measured, South Africa was the second-best performer on the continent.
An Australian man was attacked with a sawfish snout during a burglary in the northern state of Queensland, police said. Police said two thieves broke into a caravan at Bundaberg in south-east Queensland on Tuesday night and attacked the 40-year-old occupant with the fish snout, a length of cartilage with a row of serrated teeth around its outside edge.
The first digital terrestrial broadcast in Africa happened at the MediaTech Africa 2007 exhibit in Sandton, Johannesburg on Tuesday.“We decided to have a digital terrestrial trial for three days to demonstrate to the consumer what HD (high definition) will look like at home. This has never been done in Africa before,” says project leader Manny Coelho.
Associated Magazines’ public relations manager Jaco-Louis Groenewald has resigned after three years at the publishing house. Groenewald has been appointed as online and communications manager at Media24’s Creative Living Magazines division.<
Last week’s decision by the South African Reserve Bank to increase the repo rate by 50 basis points has in turn resulted in banks increasing the prime lending rate to 13%. First National Bank has put together a rate calculation table that indicates how the rate hike affects monthly home-loan repayment amounts.
Universities worldwide are exploring new ways of functioning and interacting with the communities they serve. This month the founding meeting of the International Association of New Generation Universities takes place in Ireland and a few South African universities will be attending the event.
China has become the land of 1 000 identical cities, a senior government official has warned in an outspoken attack on the country’s rush towards modernity. Qiu Baoxing, the vice-minister of construction, said the damage to the country’s heritage was similar to that wrought during the cultural revolution.
He has provoked the West’s fury with his calls for Israel’s elimination, dismissal of the Holocaust as a "myth" and strident advocacy of Iran’s nuclear rights. Now Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president, has ordered his fiery polemics to be saved for posterity in preparation for commercial publication.
The two small vessels were travelling across the Indian Ocean at high speed, their occupants wielding rocket-propelled grenades, AK47s and machine guns. Within minutes, they had gained on the bulky container ship. As he stood on the bridge of the <i>MV Rozen</i>, Captain Priayantha Perera sounded the alarm.
There’s no doubting that higher education can be a perilous way of spending free time. You can end up learning things that your parents never forgive you for, taking substances that addle your brain and result in flashbacks well into your fifties and, inevitably, dubiously named offspring.
The Open University of Tanzania is a public university that was established by an Act of Parliament in 1992 and became operational in 1993. The university offers degree and non-degree programmes through a distance and open-learning system. The university’s headquarters are in Dar es Salaam, the financial capital of Tanzania.
The higher education sector is delicately poised. Billions of rands are being pumped into the infrastructural renaissance on campuses, while a growth plan is looking to increase the number of students from 738 000 in 2005 to 820 000 in 2010. Furthermore, the government is throwing its weight into funding the production of high quality graduates in science, engineering and technology.
‘It’s probably something like the Vietnamese dong," sighed Michael Power, an Investec analyst, when I ask him which currency is the strongest in the world. "There are certain currencies we just wouldn’t pick up on." There are three different kinds of currencies: free-floating, managed, and fixed.
A Nigerian armed group fighting for control of oil resources in the Niger Delta region said on Monday that it will release all foreign hostages in its custody. The statement, purportedly from the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, gave the names of ten captives it said it planned to release later in the day to two powerful local leaders.
Software giant Microsoft is to launch a huge programme to recycle computers, which will be reconditioned, reprogrammed with its software and redistributed in Africa, a company official said on Monday. "Between now and 2010, a billion computers should be recycled worldwide and Africa can take advantage of half of them," said Cheick Modibo Diarra.
Claims by terrified villagers that "Bigfoot"-type hairy giants are roaming the jungles of India’s remote north-east have prompted authorities to order an investigation, a local official said. The bizarre sightings have been made in the Garo hills area of Meghalaya state, close to the borders with Bangladesh and Bhutan.
Israeli aircraft bombed targets in the Gaza Strip on Sunday after an attempt by Palestinian gunmen to attack an Israeli watchtower and kidnap soldiers. Four gunmen from Islamic Jihad and Fatah’s al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade drove a jeep through fence that encloses the Gaza Strip and attacked a tower.
It is time once again for that touching annual ritual, in which the world’s most powerful people move themselves to tears. At Heiligendamm they will emote with the wretched of the earth. They will beat their breasts and say many worthy things — about climate change, Africa, poverty — but one word will not leave their lips. Power.
Six days, 40 years ago. Looking back to the weeks preceding the war, it may be difficult for you to imagine just how desperate life seemed for Israelis, ringed by peoples whose armies pointed their weapons towards us, whose leaders daily promised the imminent destruction of our state and whose newspapers carried crude cartoons of Jews being kicked off the face of the earth.
South African Airways’ profitability and market share have declined at a time when air passenger numbers have more than doubled. This brings more urgency to SAA’s restructuring plans, amid concerns that the transformation of an ailing airline will not go far enough. On Monday SAA unveiled its plan to achieve a R2,7-billion turnaround aimed at restoring the airline to profitability within 18 months.
I don’t know if any of you have seen a book called <i>Portrait of a People</i> by Eli Weinberg — with the photos of the ’56 Treason Trialists — the famous portrait of Chief Albert Luthuli. Eli was the photographer of the movement of the 1950s. Halfway through the book, you’ll see a picture of a police raid at the Congress of the People where the Freedom Charter was adopted, writes Albie Sachs.