No image available
/ 28 November 2005
Zimbabwe last Friday paid an additional $10-million to the International Monetary Fund as it seeks to move out of the red, with only $25-million now outstanding under the critical General Resources Account, the state-controlled Zimbabwe <i>Herald</i> newspaper reported on Monday.
No image available
/ 28 November 2005
This week, 10Â 000 people will start to gather in Montreal for what are expected to be the most important climate-change negotiations since the agreement of the Kyoto protocol in 1997. Put simply, the scientific consensus is that only a small window of opportunity remains to avoid dangerous climate change.
No image available
/ 28 November 2005
Gaby Neujahr, who has acted as head of the Kondrad Audenauer Stiftung sub-Saharan Media Programme since 2002, is to be replaced in December 2005 by Frank Windeck. Neujahr is returning to Germany to run a publishing operation outside Munich.
No image available
/ 28 November 2005
Amnesia is a wonderful thing. How delicious to hear a spat reaching decibels of hysteria between former <i>Boetie Gaan Border Toe</i> Jannie Geldenhuys and the mild-mannered, high-foreheaded, comfortably chubby former president of Finland, Marti Ahtisaari, who was also the United Nations’s point man in the disputed territory of Namibia.
No image available
/ 28 November 2005
"The bruising political row over the rape charge being investigated by police against former deputy president Jacob Zuma has become a barometer of where South Africa stands on gender violence as the Sixteen Days of Activism campaign gets under way," writes Colleen Lowe Morna, executive director of Gender Links.
No image available
/ 27 November 2005
Norway will call in extra air-traffic controllers for the Christmas rush as hundreds of thousands of tourists, primarily from Britain, take to the skies to visit Santa in Finland’s far north, Norwegian officials said on Thursday. Each year during the holiday season, dozens of special flights link the European continent to the Arctic village of Rovaniemi.
No image available
/ 27 November 2005
Postal services around the world are gearing up for their most frantic period of the year — ensuring wishful letters from millions of children get through to the jolly fat man running the North Pole toy factory. But in reindeer-dotted Sweden, the post office is ready to go just a little bit further in the spirit of Christmas.
No image available
/ 27 November 2005
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao has visited Harbin in the country’s north-east and ordered local leaders to restore running water to 3,8-million people who spent a fourth day without supplies after a benzene spill in a nearby river. Beijing has also apologised to Moscow for the toxic chemicals flowing toward Russia.
No image available
/ 26 November 2005
Fixed-line telecommunications company Telkom has a lot of catching up to do with mobile telephone services, according to market-research company Synovate’s latest findings. Telkom showed the most marked decline in customer-satisfaction ratings, said spokesperson Jon Salters.
No image available
/ 25 November 2005
Prove it or shut up! Since May this year, the Mail & Guardian has fed us a series of articles on police National Commissioner Jackie Selebi’s alleged “links” with people allegedly under investigation by the so-called elite crime-busting unit for alleged contraband networks. Yet to date no one has been charged with crime related to […]
No image available
/ 25 November 2005
Best the DA has to offer? It is laughable that the DA’s Athol Trollip is putting himself forward to replace Tony Leon at national level (“Trollip in race for DA’s top job”, January 12). Claiming that he can fill Leon’s shoes, albeit with difficulty, Trollip boasted on TV: “I am white on the outside and […]
No image available
/ 25 November 2005
Build and be damned It is a sad day in our country when eminent persons with an admirable track record in government, such as Mike Muller, feel compelled to rubbish the mandated custodians of South Africa’s rich natural heritage, SANParks, “and their allies”, for objecting to appallingly poor planning decisions (“SANParks retreats to its old […]
No image available
/ 25 November 2005
Is this animal welfare? I refer to the Mail & Guardian‘s article (January 18) about the tragic story of Frida the Romanian lioness, so cunningly misused by Vier Pfoten International (VPI). Last year, our department of trade and industry asked me to comment on VPI’s application to establish a sanctuary in the Free State for […]
No image available
/ 25 November 2005
Revealed: Bleek Hoax It appears that the hallowed Bleek records, housed at the University of Cape Town (UCT), could be an elaborate hoax perpetrated by the German linguist, Wilhelm Bleek, aided and abetted by his sister-in-law, Lucy Lloyd, and his daughter, Dorothea. This bombshell was dropped at a conference on marginalised languages by Bleek’s great-grandson, […]
No image available
/ 25 November 2005
I hear the Arch I refer to the outraged responses to Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s wish that whites would say “I’m sorry” and “thank you” to “the vast majority of people in this country who have been so forgiving about the past”. The fact is that any white people who lived in South Africa before 1994, […]
No image available
/ 25 November 2005
Libel? It happened! The South African Zionist Federation angrily slates as “libellous” Khadija Magardie’s reference to Israeli soldiers roughing up Palestinian workers at checkpoints and shooting little schoolgirls in the head, then coming down [from] the guard tower to “confirm the kill” (“How low can you go?” May 26). The latter incident happened, and was […]
No image available
/ 25 November 2005
Money still lily-white The article “The new colour of money” (December 23) misleads the South African public by painting a glossy picture of black people and a bleak picture of whites. It wants us to believe that black people have finally arrived and that the future of white people in this country is as good […]
No image available
/ 25 November 2005
Heed your subjects’ cries! Paul Harris, you are my banker. Invest wisely: R20-million would help hire and train more than 20 000 more policemen and women. You cannot stay on the sidelines and expect the government to provide all the time. Be ingenious. Come up with plans in tandem with government. Do not seek personal […]
No image available
/ 25 November 2005
In defence of butterfly eggs Minister of Housing Lindiwe Sisulu’s comments about housing delivery being “held hostage by butterfly eggs” (“Ministries aim to trash green laws”, March 17) demonstrates her tenuous grasp of the basic laws of the universe. She faces two insurmountable problems: The “growth” she and others seek is a long-term physical impossibility. […]
No image available
/ 25 November 2005
In Cyril we trust If Cyril Ramaphosa makes himself available for the presidency, it could be the best thing ever to happen to the African National Congress and the country. Unlike Nelson Mandela and Thabo Mbeki, he has tasted the mood of both business and labour by being a union and business leader. As he […]
No image available
/ 25 November 2005
Campus racism insidious Auditors Deloitte have found that there is no racism at the University of KwaZulu-Natal’s medical school (July 7), only “small incidents, which appear to be nothing more substantial than personal differences, or wrong perceptions, or misunderstandings …” Case closed, let’s get on with it! The problem here is one of perspective, because […]
No image available
/ 25 November 2005
Welcome — but don’t affirm Many people must look on in amazement at the heated debate in the church on homosexuality — particularly in a society like ours, which feels it has moved on. Last week’s article by Bishop David Russell (“It is time to repent”) was in an appropriate vein — one of humility […]
No image available
/ 25 November 2005
All faiths used violence Pope Benedict, in trying to argue that religion should not be spread by force, failed to say that the Catholic Church, indeed Christianity, has been guilty of this. Strife between Catholicism and Protestantism, and the use of force to maintain orthodoxies by the rack, burning and warfare, are an unedifying history. […]
No image available
/ 25 November 2005
Erwin not against EIAs Fiona Macleod’s “Mbeki joins assault on green laws” (August 4) and last week’s letter from Richard Worthington, “Too red to see green” — both critical of Minister of Public Enterprises Alec Erwin — are completely misleading. Macleod implies that Erwin is against environmental impact assessments (EIAs). Nothing could be further from […]
No image available
/ 25 November 2005
DA is getting stronger In her analysis of the 2006 local election results (March 3), Vicki Robinson reached the premature conclusion that support for the Democratic Alliance had dropped and that the DA had once again failed to make inroads in the townships. A proper post-election analysis shows that the opposite is true: in 2006, […]
No image available
/ 25 November 2005
Kasrils a man of honour I am not a supporter of any political party, but I believe your readers should know what kind of man Intelligence Minister Ronnie Kasrils is and will continue to be. I met Kasrils when he was deputy minister of defence. As part of his VIP detail, I was his personal […]
No image available
/ 25 November 2005
A mindless destroyer I used to jokingly refer to the United States as the “Evil Empire”, but I’m afraid history will show this to be an accurate description of a society that mindlessly destroyed Earth’s precious reserves. About 25% of Earth’s population uses 75% of its resources, and causes a similar proportion of Earth’s pollution. […]
No image available
/ 25 November 2005
Ethanol is not green Kevin Davie’s article “Green fuels start now” (Feburary 10) seriously overstates the advantages of ethanol auto-fuels. Ethanol may be 45% cheaper than petrol in Brazil, but anyone who has driven in that country will know that you get significantly fewer kilometers per litre from it than from petrol. Brazilian E85, which […]
No image available
/ 25 November 2005
Who’s Malthusian now? It is a pity Fiona Macleod didn’t take the time to read the speech on global warming Tony Leon gave at the Oxford Debating Union before lambasting him for it (“The Malthusian musings of Tony Leon”, November 10). She might have spotted these remarks: “I am not arguing tonight that the developing […]
No image available
/ 25 November 2005
Encouraging free thought A million thanks to the Mail & Guardian for “The God rush” edition (April 13). What a great contribution you’re making in encouraging free thought and open debate as the hallmark of a mature and modern South Africa. You hold out the vision of a diverse society in which religious practice and […]
No image available
/ 25 November 2005
Give Phumzile respect Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka’s trip, which was duly approved and authorised, is one of the prices we must pay to ensure that she is safe, and can continue to contribute significantly to South Africa’s development. She is the country’s second citizen — let’s accord her the respect she deserves. It is mischievous […]
No image available
/ 25 November 2005
Mindless vilification The opprobrium heaped on Ronnie Kasrils by the Zionist lobby (Letters, September 8) has a lengthy pedigree. Writing in 1970s Britain, Labour MP Christopher Mayhew and journalist Michael Adams provide an insightful analysis of Zionist rancour in their book Publish It Not (The Middle-East Cover-Up). Particularly ludicrous and threadbare is the accusation of […]