Musicals are where it’s at, at the moment, and for the staging of these musicals certain key principles might have to apply, writes Mike van Graan.
Part 9: Your representatives in Parliament Members of Parliament (MPs) are elected to represent the people. Part of their work as public representatives is done inside Parliament and part of it is done directly with citizens during constituency weeks. MPs represent all of us, even those who did not vote in the last elections. Parliament’s […]
How a law is made Arrange learners to work into groups to do the following. Prepare a card or pieces of paper for each step in the flowchart which describes the lawmaking process. Each card or paper has the name of one step written on it. Arrange the cards into the sequence that is illustrated […]
The National Council of Provinces Unlike the National Assembly, the members of the NCOP are not elected directly by voters. Voters in each province elect the provincial legislatures, and the legislatures elect the permanent members of the NCOP. Hold a mock mini-election for the provincial legislature of your province in the class, asking learners to […]
An article by Stephen Castle, published recently in the <i>Sunday Independent</i>, revealed some of the horror that marks the brute-regime of Saparmurat Niyazov, the archetypical "president-for-life" of Turkmenistan. The country regained its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, only for its people to find themselves under a more obdurate master.
On a hot Sunday afternoon in a suburb of the Zimbabwean capital, Harare, two unlikely football teams run out on to a dusty pitch. As in Sunday soccer everywhere, the players are mostly middle-aged, pot-bellied and, to be honest, pretty useless. But an enthusiastic crowd that can number more than 2 000 cheers them on each week.
Part 8: Committees in Parliament Most of the work of Parliament is done by committees. Committees are the places where members of the public can express their opinions directly and try to influence the outcome of Parliament’s decisions. Committee meetings are open to the public, although they may be closed for very good reasons. Parliament […]
Here are some ways in which you and your class can learn more about HIV/Aids. AIDS Helpline 0800-012-322 Test Yourself How brainy are you? Do you know what’s happening in your world? Test your knowledge about HIV/Aids. If you score well, give yourself a pat on the back and know that you’re a cool someone. […]
Can the Phono-Graphix Reading method make a dent in our literacy problem in South Africa? IT is well known that illiteracy is one of the biggest problems facing South Africa. Statistics on how many adults and children are functionally illiterate are frighteningly high. Being functionally illiterate means not being able to read the most basic […]
AT least 250 schools across Zimbabwe have closed down in recent weeks in the wake of a campaign of political intimidation against teachers. Bidi Munyaradze, director of the rights organisation, ZimRights said on Monday that teachers were perceived as supporters of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), the main contenders against ZANU-PF in the […]
The findings of a report on language use in the classroom provide valuable tips for teachers. What is ‘language’? How is language acquired and what role does it play in learning across the curriculum, in various teaching and learning contexts? In the classroom, how do we think about “multilingualism”? What are some of the challenges […]
At least 75 people have been reported killed and thousands more displaced in southern Sudan’s Lakes State since interclan violence, sparked by cattle rustling and disputes over pasture and water, erupted on April 24, aid workers said on Wednesday.
It’s all terribly exciting: enough cash to finance half of the current account deficit, the biggest foreign investment of the post-apartheid era, and a seismic jolt for the cosy cartel upon which our banking system reposes. Barclays’s bid for Absa, ask almost anyone, is a R33 billion "vote of confidence" from the great raptorial beasts of the global financial system.
One of the government’s pressing dilemmas is what to do about South Africa’s growing energy demands, given that the country’s power generation capacity will peak in two years’ time. The authorities have undertaken to supply 80% of households with electricity by 2014, and abundant cheap energy is a prerequisite for economic progress. Yet none of the options is entirely unproblematic.
MWeb may have to retrench 109 employees after its acquisition of Tiscali South Africa three months ago, it was reported on Wednesday. The company’s chief executive, Kim Reid, said "certain duplications and/or redundancies" have been determined after MWeb evaluated the effects of acquiring Tiscali and combining the two businesses.
Jesus Christ is having trouble convincing United States courts to let him keep his name. It’s not the Messiah who is facing this problem, of course, but an American business-owner who, about 15 years ago, adopted the name of the Christian God’s son. The man, born Peter Robert Phillips Jnr, started his legal battle in 2003.
A tiny Canadian shrub is the quickest-moving thing in the plant world, using a catapult mechanism to eject its pollen at a speed hundreds of times faster than a launched rocket, scientists have found. The plant, bunchberry dogwood, grows in thick carpets in the vast swampy, spruce-fir forests of the North American taiga.
For more than a century, teams of donkeys have carried tourists down the beach at Blackpool, one of Britain’s top tourist destinations. But only now are they to get a compulsory lunch break. A wide-ranging "employment rights" charter for donkeys was announced on Wednesday.
In an unusual first for the art world, a London auction house announced on Wednesday it will sell a series of abstract paintings by a chimpanzee, Congo, once feted as the "Cezanne of the ape world". Congo became famous in the late 1950s when his swirling works were exhibited in London.
A recent newspaper advert exhorting the owners of farmland in Namibia to provide their details to the government, or face a stiff fine, imprisonment or both, has brought a flood of responses. The advert named the owners of about 1 000 farms who have not provided the ministry of land and resettlement with their contact details.
Locust experts have concluded that West Africa will experience a relatively mild invasion of the crop-eating insects during the coming rainy season, and 90% of the money needed to finance control measures is already available, a senior official of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation said on Tuesday.
The South African online publishing industry has grown its readership by about 25% to attract a monthly combined local and overseas readership of 4,38-million readers or unique browsers and 111,6-million page impressions, the Online Publishers Association said this week.
Industrial brand management company Barloworld on Wednesday reported headline earnings per share of 372 cents for the six months ended March 31, from 374 cents for the same period a year ago. The headline earnings per share were affected by a number of non-operational factors.
South Africa’s official opposition Democratic Alliance is alarmed at reports of a proposal being discussed in the South African Cabinet for a "super-ministry" to oversee the economy, calling it an "outdated idea that will result in the overcentralisation of power and more bureaucratic red tape".
Gold Fields is to appeal against a decision by the Competition Tribunal granting approval for rival Harmony’s proposed merger with the mining group. The tribunal on Tuesday approved the proposed transaction, subject to conditions designed to ameliorate "certain potentially negative public interest consequences" arising from the merger.
I was listening to Radio Sweden the other day. Don’t laugh. You have no idea how difficult it is to continue writing a column after that opening, but I’ve always wanted to try. It’s like accepting a challenge from your mates to weave the words platypus or absquatulate into a column ("semiaquatic egg-laying mammal" and "to depart in a hurry", respectively).
The United Kingdom’s defence ministry on Monday defended a decision to pay for an ex-servicewoman to train to be an erotic "pole dancer", arguing it has a duty to help former troops return to civilian life. Stephanie Hulme received £2 290 (about R26 600) to train as a pole dancer, newspaper reports said.
The most expensive soup in Britain is the star dish on the menu of an upmarket Chinese restaurant in London — at a mere £108 (R1 150) a bowl. Called "Buddha Jumps over the Wall", the shark’s-fin soup is made with whole abalone, Japanese flower mushroom, sea cucumber, dried scallops, chicken, ham, pork and ginseng.
A wronged Israeli wife, whose husband made love to his secretary in a bachelor hideaway, quenched her lust for revenge by indulging in her own extramarital dalliances in the same rented apartment. The woman, from the northern coastal city of Haifa, hired a private detective to track her cheating husband down.
Ethiopian farmer Abdi Omar Elmi was sleeping when floodwaters swept his six-year-old son to his death. Seconds later, he said, crocodiles seized his two nephews and dragged them off as the surging torrent washed away their traditional stick hut. "I have lost everything," said the 40-year-old farmer from the safety of nearby Kelafo town.
The South Africa-Nigeria Chamber of Commerce, to be launched on Thursday, aims to address the challenges faced by South African companies doing business in the continent’s biggest market and to help them understand and adapt to Nigeria’s rules and culture, which differ markedly from South Africa’s.
An English naturalist squats in the rainforest’s canopy, 80m up, like a pasty gorilla clad in tweed. Far below, the jungle floor roils in an apocalypse of man-eating ants, winged air-breathing piranhas and poisoned-dart-secreting toads, and where anacondas like tractor tyres possess higher brain functions and opposable thumbs. Humanity is not welcome here, but our scientist is not taking the hint …