Donwald Pressly Foreigners have found ways of robbing the state of millions of rands in social welfare grants to which they are not entitled, including old age pensions meant for the poor. This emerges from Auditor General Shauket Fakie’s general report on government spending up to March 31 2001, presented to the public accounts committee. […]
Harare | Tuesday A ZIMBABWE pro-government militia decapitated a 53-year-old woman at the weekend, forcing her two daughters to watch her die in their family kitchen, Zimbabwe’s opposition said this week. Brandina Tadyanemhandu was killed on Sunday, after the militia descended on her home demanding to see her 62-year-old husband, Enos Tadyanemhandu, who was away, […]
Karachi | Wednesday THE trial of four men accused of kidnapping and killing US reporter Daniel Pearl resumed in Pakistan on Wednesday, with the chief prosecutor saying he did not expect it to last much longer. Raja Qureshi said he believed the trial could be wrapped up within the seven-day period allowed under Pakistan’s anti-terrorism […]
Paris | Tuesday PROTESTS swelled in France on Tuesday as far-right challenger Jean-Marie Le Pen began campaigning against incumbent conservative Jacques Chirac for next month’s presidential run-off, insisting he stood a strong chance of winning. Thousands of high school students took to the streets in the cities of Montpellier, Le Havre, Rouen, Montauban and Toulon […]
Johannesburg | Tuesday FORMER South African president Nelson Mandela said Monday he was relieved the South African government had changed its Aids policy, after it announced it would provide the anti-retroviral drug nevirapine to rape victims. The government at present supplies nevirapine to HIV-positive pregnant women and their newborn babies to prevent mother-to-child transmission of […]
United Nations | Wednesday A CAMPAIGN to pressure African governments to end taxes on mosquito nets treated with insecticide was launched on the Internet on Thursday by a non-governmental organisation. The campaign, by Massive Effort, coincides with Malaria Day in Africa, where the majority of the 300-million cases of malaria in the world are to […]
Brazzaville | Wednesday THE Congo government on Tuesday called on renegade militias, known as the Ninjas, in the southern region of Pool to lay down their arms. “Those who have not yet understood the peace message of President Denis Sassou Nguesso should put down their arms. Young people should lay down their arms, president Sassou […]
Hands up all those who read about the meeting of the World Economic Forum in New York about two weeks ago
Don?t put your daughter on the stage, Mrs Worthington? ran the old song. Today?s version might continue: ?Put her into marketing.?
That most redoubtable of worthies, Nigel Bruce, recently distinguished himself in Parliament. Once the editor of the <i>Financial Mail</i>, Nigel Bruce is now an MP for the DA. For a precious five minutes Nigel claimed a forum often jealously occupied by the screechy victimocracy.
A typical end-of-year summing up of South Africa’s 2004 will look like this
TEA prices fell sharply in Kenya this week as ripples from heavy withdrawals seriously hit Monday’s weekly tea auction in Mombasa, leading broking house, Africa Tea Brokers (ATB), said in a market report released here Tuesday.<br>
Cape Town | Tuesday THE South African government on Monday introduced a revised version of a controversial Minerals Development Bill, which effectively transfers control of mineral rights from private companies and individuals to the state. A memorandum attached to the second draft of the bill — renamed the Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Bill –says […]
Luanda | Tuesday THE Angolan government is considering how to revive the 1 600-kilometre Benguela railway, which it wants to bring back into service after 27 years of civil war, an official said on Monday. The railway was once part of a massive transcontinental network that linked the Angolan port of Lobito, near Benguela, on […]
Excuse me while I date myself. My children were born in pre-Thatcher Welfare State Britain
Raleigh, North Carolina | Friday THE name of an ex-South African Airways pilot has been found on a document in a cave in Afghanistan. Isaiah Nombo, a Tanzanian, has been detained on immigration charges in the US after his name was found on a document in the cave. He also appears to be the same […]
Sun City | Saturday POLITICAL parties and civil groups from the Democratic Republic of Congo on Friday joined a deal between the Kinshasa government and Ugandan-backed rebels to create a transitional government. The pact, signed by the government and the Congolese Liberation Movement (MLC) on Wednesday, effectively leaves the Rwandan-backed Congolese Rally for Democracy (RCD) […]
Antananarivo | Tuesday MADAGASCAR’S High Constitutional Court (HCC) announced on Monday it had begun recounting ballot papers from a controversial presidential election in December that plunged the Indian Ocean island into political crisis. “We began the recount on April 17,” said HCC member Florent Rakotoarisoa, saying the HCC would announce the results within “weeks, rather […]
EMSIE FERREIRA, Sun City | Friday PEACE talks on the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) collapsed early on Friday as the Kinshasa regime and two rebel groups failed to reach an accord to end their war and govern together, the parties said. The talks cost in excess of R50-million. The negotiations between the three belligerents, […]
Kinshasa | Sunday FRAUD in the diamond industry drains the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) of $400-million (449 million euros) a year, Mines and Hydrocarbons Minister Simon Tumawako said on Saturday. Tumawako said the lost income amounted to about two thirds of the nation’s potential revenue from diamonds. He was speaking at a ceremony to […]
Lagos | Tuesday THE Nigerian government on Monday began to take a census of unemployment in the country, covering both the jobless and the underemployed, officials said. The exercise by the Labour Ministry’s National Directorate of Employment (NDE) will last a week. Centres have been opened in offices across the 36 states of the federation […]
PETER BEAUMONT, Jerusalem and JULIAN BORGER, Washington | Friday THE United States’s efforts to broker a new ceasefire in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict ended in humiliation for US Secretary of State Colin Powell on Wednesday. He was forced to return home with neither a truce nor any evidence that Israel is ending its siege of Palestinian […]
JASPREET KINDRA and MAIL & GUARDIAN REPORTER, Johannesburg | Friday AMNESTY International has voiced “deep concern” over South Africa’s unclear stance on a European Union resolution on violence by militia members and “war veterans” in Zimbabwe, tabled at the United Nations Human Rights Commission in Geneva. Amnesty’s UN lobbyist Cathy Turner said Amnesty saw South […]
IAN BLACK in Brussels, EWEN MACASKILL and NICHOLAS WATT | Friday ISRAEL’S international reputation slumped to its lowest point in two decades this week amid condemnation in Britain and Europe of the Israeli army’s behaviour at the Palestinian refugee camp in Jenin in the West Bank. There were calls for a United Nations-led inquiry into […]
HOWARD BARRELL, Johannesburg | Friday ELECTRONIC versions of two controversial documents promoting the dissident view of HIV/Aids carry embedded signatures suggesting that they were written on Thabo Mbeki’s computer. But computer experts have told the Mail&Guardian that this cannot be conclusive proof of authorship. The presidency on Thursday issued a guarded response to the M&G’s […]
CLAIRE SNEGAROFF, Jenin | Friday AHMAD Hussein Faraj feels his life is over. He cannot find his wife, he has been told one son is dead, and he does not know exactly where his house once stood in what is now the rubble of the Jenin refugee camp. Filled with heartache, the 70-year-old struggles to […]
JASPREET KINDRA, Johannesburg | Friday SENIOR KwaZulu-Natal prisons official Philemon Ntuli, who has given testimony to the Jali commission implicating former provincial prison boss Russel Ngubo and other officials in crimes, says he is trying to rid the department and the African National Congress of “rotten apples”. Ntuli is in hiding after claiming he has […]
NAWAAL DEANE, Johannesburg | Friday THE South African Union of Journalists (SAUJ) is facing a financial crisis that may lead to its demise if drastic measures are not implemented to cut costs and restructure its office expenditure. Financial statements for last year indicate that the union office has been depleting funds held in the Joint […]
Bangkok | Tuesday THAILAND’S executions by firing squad could be replaced by lethal injections from next year, after the upper house Senate votes on the issue in October, a report said Tuesday.Bangkok Post that a team of experts, including an architect, a doctor and an engineer, would go to the United States in June for […]
Charlotte Denny An Oxfam report accuses the West of double standards on trade The European Union and the United States are robbing the world’s poor of billions of dollars each year in export earnings by preaching free trade while protecting their own markets, development campaigners claim. Analysing Western approaches to trade in a report, Rigged […]
Peter Robinson On Monday evening, only a few hours after the Supersport Series final had curled up and died of neglect at Kingsmead, South Africa’s Test match sponsors, Castle Lager and MTN, held a farewell do for Allan Donald in Johannesburg. It was a low-key affair. As ever Donald was immaculately dressed in a suit, […]
Howard Barrell Electronic versions of two controversial documents promoting the dissident view of HIV/Aids carry embedded signatures suggesting that they were written on Thabo Mbeki’s computer. But computer experts have told the Mail & Guardian that this cannot be conclusive proof of authorship. The presidency on Thursday issued a guarded response to the M&G’s discovery. […]