Ngwako Modjadji Residents of Bolobedu, near Tzaneen in Limpopo province, have lodged a complaint with the provincial government after the municipality failed to change the name of their village from Strangers’ Rest to Bolobedu South. The area is a tourist attraction for its cycads. The villagers say the road sign at the entrance to the […]
The diamond giant’s deal with an empowerment company, giving it far-reaching rights, could breach competition law, writes Wisani wa ka Ngobeni Diamond giant De Beers has signed a confidential agreement with a black economic empowerment mining group that gives it extraordinary powers over the black company’s future dealings. The Mail & Guardian is in possession […]
Donwald Pressly The government has cocked a snook at opposition demands for the cancellation of the second tranche of the arms deal, which will see the delivery of a further dozen British Aerospace Hawk trainers at a cost of R3-billion. The third tranche, which needs a final nod in two years’ time, will see 19 […]
REVIEW David Shapshak Flash MX, R7 799 The invite to our wedding was done in Flash by my wife, who was then a Web designer. Watching her, and other Flash designers, work over the years has not been too different from watching programmers crush out code in a very user-unfriendly way. While many features of […]
Belinda Beresford Tim Modise and SABC-Safm have been cleared by the Broadcasting Complaints Commission of charges of “sedition” and supporting lawlessness for a radio show on the subject of HIV/Aids. The allegations had been made by Anita Allen, one of South Africa’s leading Aids dissidents, on behalf of her husband’s firm, David Allen Associates. She […]
Rick Whitaker Flights OFLOVE by Bernard Schlink (Weidenfeld & Nicolson) It is hard to love a book with as bad a title as Flights of Love. Even “Loveflights”, a translation that more closely resembles the original German title, Liebesfluchten, would give a better indication of what is in store for the reader of this collection […]
Sarah Duguid Samuel Johnson said that the world was full of writers who didn’t care if they were studied they just wanted to be read. But in South Africa dwindling numbers of school libraries and budget cuts for public libraries means that the nation’s access to books is becoming severely limited. Public libraries cannot offer […]
Mail & Guardian reporter Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and the European Environmental Bureau released a joint media statement last week urging European Union governments and the European Commission to safeguard European agriculture and biodiversity by preventing any genetically modified (GM) crops of beet and oilseed rape being grown in the EU. The statement is […]
Harare | Wednesday ZIMBABWE’S opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) said on Tuesday it would hold low-level talks with the ruling Zanu-PF on the future of the country in the aftermath of last month’s disputed presidential election. The talks, due to begin on Wednesday, follow recommendations from the Commonwealth which last month suspended Zimbabwe for […]
Sun City | Tuesday PEACE talks for the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have run into more trouble as negotiations on the country’s political future deadlocked and rebels warned they would stop working with UN observers. The Rwandan-backed Congolese Rally for Democracy (RCD) rebel movement said it would not demilitarise two key towns in eastern […]
Strange and worrying things are happening in the village of Mamvuka, in Limpopo’s rocky Nyhelele Valley. Mamvuka’s folk scratch out their survival, making do with what they’ve got: a strip of mealies here, a plot of cabbages there, and that ubiquitous of African domestic animals, the goat.
Jerusalem, Ramallah | Monday ISRAELI Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said that Israel was at war and branded Yasser Arafat an “enemy of the free world” after a Palestinian suicide bomber killed 15 people in the city of Haifa. Defence Minister Benyamin Ben Eliezer said on Monday that Israel had decided to “totally isolate” Palestinian leader […]
Total in 2001: 52(up four since 19/7) Escaping custody is practically a hobby in Mpumalanga. We keep you up to date with this increasingly popular pastime. –> [an error occurred while processing this directive]
Harare | Saturday A LAWYER was seeking a High Court order on Saturday to free jailed journalist Peta Thornycroft who has been accused of violating Zimbabwe’s new press law. Thornycroft, a Zimbabwean citizen with a South African residence permit, is a correspondent for a number of publications, including the Johannesburg-based Mail & Guardian (M&G), Britain’s […]
JULIAN BORGER, Washington | Thursday THE United States air force has begun preparations to move its Gulf headquarters from Saudi Arabia to Qatar, to bypass Saudi objections to military action against Iraq, according to Saudi analysts and businesspeople involved in the relocation. A senior executive of a Saudi contracting firm said several companies had been […]
SIZWE SAMAYENDE, Nelspruit | Thursday SOUTH Africa’s beleaguered Legal Aid Board has decided to drop private lawyers who are believed to be costing the taxpayer millions of rands every year. The tough new policy forms part of the board’s ambitious restructuring programme, which is designed to improve and expand legal representation for the poor. Board […]
SHYAKA KANUMA, Johannesburg | Thursday A HIGH court judge has issued a ruling against the Department of Home Affairs to prevent the deportation of a Congolese, Jacques Katambayi, back to his country. The case of Katambayi, who was represented by Lawyers for Human Rights (LHR), is an unusual one: he actually was being deported by […]
R8-billion plan to replace taxis hits deadlock Taxi industry wants a greater say in the tender process for replacement vehicles. Business Day –> DISCLAIMER: ZA*NOW is updated regularly from Monday to Friday, with updates to sports and major news over the weekends. While every effort is made to publish reliable information, the Daily Mail & […]
THE IMF awarded Lesotho four million dollars under a special anti-poverty arrangement Monday, following a review of its overall fiscal performance. “Key economic indicators are performing as expected: The overall fiscal stance continued to improve, economic growth picked up and inflation remained stable,” the board of the International Monetary Fund said in a written statement. […]
A former member of Umkhonto We Sizwe (MK) appeared in the Johannesburg Magistrate’s Court on Wednesday on two charges of murder. Siphiwe Joka (41) is accused of last year’s shooting in Johannesburg’s Hillbrow suburb of two men who were involved in a fight. He was arrested in Mitchells Plain, Cape Town, for the murders, which […]
Johannesburg | Saturday THE South African chapter of the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) on Saturday condemned the detention without trial of journalist Peta Thornycroft by the Zimbabwe Central Intelligence Agency. MISA (SA) in a statement demanded the immediate release of Thornycroft stating that: “Her detention shows that the imprisonment is a punitive action […]
LEON ENGELBRECHT, Harare | Friday DETAINED Zimbabwean journalist Peta Thornycroft was moved from Chimanimani to a police cell in Mutare, north east of Harare, on Thursday afternoon, her son, Adrian, said on Friday. “She has had access to her lawyer, which is a good thing. Her cousin has also seen her and said she seems […]
The world’s top jazz and soul musicians gather in Cape Town this weekend at the North Sea Jazz Festival for an impressive 32-act line-up, writes Rob Rose.
Shyaka Kanuma A high court judge has issued a ruling against the Department of Home Affairs to prevent the deportation of a Congolese, Jacques Katambayi, back to his country. The case of Katambayi, who was represented by Lawyers for Human Rights (LHR), is an unusual one: he actually was being deported by Australia. Katambayi was […]
Juan Pablo Montoya brings a little insouciance back to Formula One Jim White The sound of summer fills the clean, clear air on the Costa Brava. A whine like a particularly persistent mosquito echoes through the orange groves, so loud it is playing the xylophone on the rib cage. The Williams grand prix operation is […]
Charlene Smith An innovative project in Pietermari-tzburg is using soccer and soccer players to spread Aids awareness in the highly infected province. Gethwane Makhaye of Targeted Aids Intervention first began using soccer as a way of teaching young people about Aids some years ago, after she had finished a pilot study for Unicef that looked […]
Ronald Suresh Roberts: apology On March 28 we published a story (“ANC tycoons in diamond rights row”) which suggested, among other things, that Ronald Suresh Roberts was among those who “headed” the New Diamond Corporation (NDC), which is currently in dispute with a section of a Northern Cape community over mineral rights on their land. […]
Thebe Mabanga The leadership of the Pan Africanist Congress has refused to condemn the violent disruption of schools in the East Rand township of Tsakane by its student wing, blaming Minister of Education Kader Asmal and African National Congress-aligned teachers for provoking the upheavals. The school disruption campaign by the Pan Africanist Student Organisation (Paso), […]
A group of Americans is taking part in a hike to raise funds for research into a cure for Aids Susan Colby A group of 150 United States Aids activists will hike through the Cedarberg in the Western Cape, in an attempt to raise funds for the development of a vaccine against Aids. Each hiker […]
M&G reporter The Elle and Elizabeth Arden Visible Difference Award for the contribution of women to South African society enters its third year, calling on the public to rally behind those remarkable women who work tirelessly to make a difference in their communities. At the launch of this year’s awards Elle and Elizabeth Arden handed […]
In future consumers will be able to do almost anything via their phones, writes David Shapshak ‘O and of course the vending mach-ines,” Karri Hautanen says, after rattling off a sophisticated list of what you can use your cellphone to pay for in Finland. When I comment on his laissez-faire attitude to what is still […]
From being the pride of Africa, South Africa is becoming more and more like never-never land. The recent, long-awaited announcement by Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang that HIV does cause Aids, and that this is the basis of the government’s policy on the epidemic, is now being seriously undermined by the actions of a group in […]