Familiarity has bred a bit of contempt, reports Martin Gillingham If the Olympic movement has reason to thank track and field’s late boss Dr Primo Nebiolo, then it is for his decision 10 years ago to double the frequency of the world athletics championships. It was a move motivated more by Nebiolo’s greed for broadcasting […]
In today’s economy, where you are doesn’t matter, it’s what you do and how well you do it that counts Deleen Wilson Business education in the 21st century will have to reflect and engage the major changes taking place in management demands around the world. But what will be the role of the increasingly popular […]
Marianne Merten The Cape High Court this week delivered one of South Africa’s first rulings on ethical and accountable conduct by state officials when it slammed as unconstitutional the actions by two state advocates in prosecuting the 1996 murder of Cape gang boss Rashaad Staggie. Cape Deputy Judge President Jeanette Traverso and Judge Dennis Davis […]
Mboniso Sigonyela It is rare that a company finds a non-executive of Vincent Mntambo’s calibre. He has a master’s degree in law from Yale and is credited with the miraculous turnaround at the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration where he is chairperson. Mntambo joins the Aveng board with effect from July 31 as a […]
The Simpsons America’s favourite dysfunctional family. Jammed with cultural references, Matt Groening’s creation has maintained its high standards since 1989. King of the Hill The brainchild of Beavis and Butthead creator Mike Judge. The suburban humdrum of Hank Hill and family is given droll treatment in an intelligent show. Daria A cult success on both […]
Technikon research may still be in its infancy, but it is taking itself seriously and growing fast, says Cheryl Lombard, manager of the Technikon Programme of the National Research Foundation (NRF). Before Parliament allowed technikons to award degrees in 1993, nobody encouraged or expected them to engage in research. The NRF’s financial support of technikon […]
The mystery shareholder in Beige who is now trying to get his money back after suspected fraud and theft was uncovered, is an entrepreneur who sold his property development business last year and bought a well-stocked game farm. The small-time private investor, Chris Schutte, had converted the bulk of his investment portfolio into cash just […]
For these bikers, happiness is a fast bike, writes Leila Amanpour Bikers and Hell’s Angels wannabes, usually associated with white culture, were never a popular sight in Soweto. Even now, some Sowetans regard bikers as the “bad guys”, but for Soweto’s number-one biker gang, the Eagles, friendship and family are paramount to their lives. For […]
Glenda Daniels The tripartite alliance is balanced on a knife-edge as talks deadlocked this week between the African National Congress and the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) over the government’s privatisation policies. Cosatu says it will engage in a two-day strike on August 29 and 30 with a build-up of half-day strikes and […]
Plans to develop a perlemoen farm in a biosphere reserve have been met with objections Barry Streek A decision by the national and Western Cape governments to allow a perlemoen (abalone) farm in the pristine Pringle Bay area, located in the buffer zone of the country’s only United Nation-recognised biosphere, has triggered strong criticism from […]
Thuli Nhlapo visits Johannesburg hospital, where male and female patients are forced to share a ward The CEO of Johannesburg hospital has confirmed that “at times, especially in winter”, the hospital puts patients of the opposite sex in the same ward. “We have a huge number of patients in this hospital. Currently we have a […]
Jeremy Cronin writes (July 20) that the “key achievement” of the South African Communist Party was to rethink the communist project. The seminal work in this regard was Joe Slovo’s Has Socialism Failed? (1990) which argued as Cronin puts it that the “key weakness in the Soviet system was a tragic undermining of democracy”. Cronin […]
Peter Kingston Here’s a whopping conundrum. For eight years you’ve been toiling on your thesis about the British post-war far left, as it happens and you’re within a spit of the doctorate. The examiners want you to rejig the thesis introduction and resubmit it. On the other hand, a song you’ve written for your band […]
Alun Munslow Over the years the practice of history has witnessed a good many shifts and turns. Since the 1960s, for example, the discipline has experienced a social science turn, a cliometric or statistics turn, a women’s history turn, a cultural history turn and so on. These are not fads. Each has developed and still […]
FOUR Tanzanian teenagers, who went missing at an international scouting convention in Virginia, have turned up in Washington, turned themselves in to police and now are seeking political asylum, authorities here said on Tuesday. “The four boy scouts … have been found safe and unharmed,” the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) said in a statement. […]
CHRISTOF MALETSKY, Windhoek | Thursday THE South African Broadcasting Corporation last night apologised to President Sam Nujoma for quoting him out of context in a documentary programme aired last month. The programme Special Assignment broadcast an apology for the “very serious journalistic error” which was read out by the presenter. The text of the apology […]
Cape Town | Thursday THE South African Navy icebreaker Outeniqua was racing Wednesday to remote Marion Island, 1_100km southeast of Cape Town, to aid two seriously ill members of a weather service expedition, officials said. The icebreaker, expected to arrive late Friday or early Saturday, has a fully equipped hospital on board, complete with operating […]
IRIN, City | day NIGERIA plans to launch the largest Aids treatment program in Africa using cheap generic drugs on 1 September, AP reported on Tuesday. Stephen Lewis, the special envoy of Secretary-General Kofi Annan for HIV/Aids in Africa told a press conference on Monday that the Nigerian government’s commitment demonstrates that efforts are under […]
FINANCE and economic experts in Malawi on Wednesday took President Bakili Muluzi’s government to task over the suspension of a four-year-old program to privatise some 100 loss-making parastatals. The Malawi cabinet last week suspended the much vaunted privatization program without giving a reason. “The general public want an explanation from government because there are still […]
SUDAN’S health ministry has sent an emergency medical team to the city of Port Sudan on the Red Sea after around 40 people died of sunstroke there during a heatwave. Health minister Ahmed Bilal Osman said in a statement that 38 people, most of them elderly, had died from the heat out of a total […]
UNITED NATIONS Secretary-General Kofi Annan named former Ugandan Health Minister Crispus Kiyonga as head of the transition team for the UN-brokered Global Aids and Health Fund on Monday. Kiyonga, who until last week oversaw what many observers consider to be “one of Africa’s most effective AIDS-prevention campaigns,” will head a group charged with determining how […]
OVER 2_500 residents of the northern Ethiopia border town of Himora have been displaced from their homes following the overflowing of the Tekeze river, Ethiopia radio reported on Monday. This flooded parts of the town, forcing residents to flee to higher ground. The river forms part of the common border between Ethiopia and Eritrea until […]
Cape Town | Wednesday A JUDGE on Tuesday ruled that an English court order forcing foreign journalists in South Africa to hand over video footage of a vigilante lynching was invalid. Cape Town High Court Judge Jeannette Traverso found that international news agencies Reuters and Associated Press (AP) did not have to submit video footage […]
TALKS between representatives of Burundi government and those of the rebel CNDD-FDD were on Friday adjourned till August, SAPA reported. It quoted South African deputy president, Jacob Zuma, who mediated the talks as expressing optimism about the outcome of the talks. He told journalists that another round of talks would be held at a venue […]
WERNER MENGES, Windhoek | Wednesday THE 125 men accused of high treason and other alleged offences in what is set to be Namibia’s biggest trial since Independence are set to appear in the High Court at Grootfontein tomorrow, with the ranks of their defence lawyers now reduced to one solitary attorney. Tsumeb attorney Chris van […]
MPUMALANGAs renegade lion almost caused a pile-up on the N4 highway just outside the provincial capital Nelspruit on Monday night when it dashed across the busy road. Shaken motorists called the local radio station from the scene, describing how the young male lion casually loped across the double-carriage motorway at 8pm before disappearing into orange […]
Cape Town | Wednesday A JUDGE on Tuesday ruled that an English court order forcing foreign journalists in South Africa to hand over video footage of a vigilante lynching was invalid. Cape Town High Court Judge Jeannette Traverso found that international news agencies Reuters and Associated Press (AP) did not have to submit video footage […]
Pretoria | Tuesday WOUTER BASSON, the mastermind behind apartheid South Africa’s chemical warfare programme, on Monday denied having supplied potions to kill liberation fighters from the South West Africa People’s Organisation (Swapo). Basson (51) was contradicting testimony by a former fellow soldier in the Pretoria High Court that Basson had given him deadly muscle relaxants […]
ANOTHER endangered mountain gorilla died in a crossfire in the forested Virunga volcanoes which straddle the borders of Uganda, Rwanda and eastern DRC, a statement from the African Wildlife Foundation (AWF) said. AWF quoted the director of the International Gorilla Conservation Program (IGCP), Annette Lanjouw, as saying that Rugendo [the dead gorilla], was shot dead […]
A YOUNG male lion that escaped from the Kruger National Park two weeks ago is still on the prowl in forests surrounding the small holiday town of White River in Mpumalanga. Mpumalanga Parks Board spokesman Gary Sutter said on Monday the renegade lion had dodged baited traps and ranger patrols but was believed to still […]
ALGERIANS who served with the French army during the Algerian civil war are planning to charge France with crimes against humanity for allegedly abandoning them after Algerian independence, their lawyer said on Monday. The ex-soldiers will file a suit before French courts at the end of next month, said Philippe Reulet, representing the National Liaison […]
ZAMBIA plans to reform its tax system in a bid to stimulate economic growth and development, the finance ministry announced on Monday. A ministry statement said the tax reforms would be implemented as part of next year’s national budget. “The objective of the tax reform is to build a modern tax system that is conducive […]