THE German government is willing to assist the country with money to solve the thorny issue of land reform and resettlement on condition that the money is used to train and equip farmers. The Germans have ruled out the possibility of contributing money to a special land fund. Dr Helga Countess Strachwitz, the German Commissioner […]
DAVID WILLIAMS, Genoa | Sunday GROUP of Eight leaders, surrounded by protesters who accuse them of failing the poor, announced on Saturday a new deal to eradicate poverty in Africa. “We have decided today to forge a new partnership to address issues crucial to African development,” the leaders said in the Genoa Plan for Africa, […]
A MINIBUS traveling from the coastal town of Kismayo in Somalia on its way to Mogadishu, 500km to the north, on Wednesday detonated a land mine at Erile near the town of Barawe, after covering just over 200km. This was the fourth such incident in the same area in a week. A local businessman, said […]
A STOLEN 800-year-old Ethiopian cross and a treasured book have been restored to the Ethiopian Orthodox Church after being found in France. The two treasured artefacts were handed over to the priests of their churches at a ceremony on Thursday presided over by the Orthodox patriarch, Abouna Paulos, and attended by Culture Minister Woldemichael Chamo. […]
MUNGO SOGGOT, STEFAANS BRMMER AND DAVID SHAPSHAK Johannesburg | Friday 14.45: ACCORDING to Telkom, its deputy chief operating officer Bheki Langa on Friday resigned from the company. Telkom is therefore dropping its disciplinary enquiry, but will proceed with an investigation into the allegations directed at Langa. Langa contends that he has been looking at other […]
TWO people have been killed in Burundi in an attack blamed on rebels from the Forces for the Defence of Democracy (FDD), one of two Hutu rebel groups opposed to the minority Tutsi government. “A member of the peacekeeping militia was killed and another seriously injured” in one attack in the Kirekura area of Rumonge […]
Cape Town SOUTH African millionaire Mark Shuttleworth has confirmed that he is undergoing training in Russia to become the next paying space tourist, it was reported on Friday. The Cape Times newspaper quoted Shuttleworth as saying he began “intense” training at the Star City astronautical centre outside Moscow on Tuesday to in a bid to […]
Maputo | Saturday TWO Mozambican policemen were Friday sentenced to 17 and 18 years each in jail over last year’s death of 83 detainees from suffocation at a police holding cell in Mozambique’s northern town of Montepuez, state media reported Saturday. The officer on duty on the night of the deaths, Tereciano Mithale, was sentenced […]
AN Egyptian woman (19) threw herself from the fourth floor of a Cairo building rather than face scandal arising from her being discovered in her boyfriend’s apartment, the daily al-Ahram said Thursday. The young girl was with her 22-year-old boyfriend, a student and computer salesman, in his house in the main Sunni Muslim neighbourhood of […]
MORE than 100 people have been killed since January in clashes between armed groups in Rusizi, eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), a human rights group claimed. Of the 104 people killed, 13 triggered anti-personnel mines while the others died when the Rusizi plain “became a battlefield between several armed groups,” the League of Rights […]
AN apparent assassination attempt involving a 10-minute frenzy of grenades, rockets and gunfire against Itihi Ossetoumba Lekoundzo, defence minister of the Republic of Congo (ROC) was reported to have taken place on Wednesday in Brazzaville. Lekoundzo escaped harm, and there was no word of any injuries or deaths. Military officials linked the attack to disgruntled […]
IRAN Zambia have decided to resume diplomatic ties, broken off in 1993, at ambassador level. “The Islamic republic of Iran, in line with its policies to promote ties with world countries, especially the third world and African nations, is intending to resume ties with Zambia,” the foreign ministry said. Zambia severed ties with Iran and […]
THE arid west African state of Burkina Faso announced on Thursday that it had obtained almost 47 000 tonnes of cereal from the international community to help it cope with famine. In February Burkina Faso made an urgent appeal for 65 300 tonnes of provisions to make up a shortfall. “From June 30, 2001, the […]
A local environmental project is teaching people in under-resourced areas how to make the most of what they have Barry Streek This week 22 Cape Town teachers went on a five-day permaculture process course at a Khayelitsha school as part of a pioneering new approach to incorporate environmental education in schools. The course, conducted by […]
schoolboy There are fears that a new virulent strain of the disease is circulating in South Africa Mail & Guardian reporter James Hale (16), a scholar at Pretoria Boys High, was packing to return to boarding school on Sunday when he developed a severe headache. His parents took him to Sunward Park Clinic in Boksburg […]
Philip French Not all great movie meals are enticing banquets and one of the most famous of all is as nightmarish as it’s funny. It’s one of the four celebrated meals in Charlie Chaplin’s The Gold Rush, a personal favourite among his pictures made in 1925. In one of them, Chaplin pretends to be a […]
Marianne Merten Citizens appearing in Cape Town’s tax court get more than they bargain for a lecture on civic responsibility and how not submitting tax returns undermines South Africa’s transformation. “This court is not an alien living on the moon, but part of society,” magistrate Nu’maan Long recently lectured an offender. A Cape Town businessman […]
BOXING Deon Potgieter Harry Simon, the first Namibian to win a boxing world title, is looking to further entrench his name in history by challenging for a world title in a higher weight division. Not only is Simon, the World Boxing Organisation (WBO) junior-middleweight champion, moving up in weight, he’s also moving up in quality. […]
Andries Oliphant speaks to Thebe Mabanga about a blueprint for development of the arts through corporate funding The Arts & Culture Trust (ACT) has done well but has a number of key areas to improve on, believes Andries Oliphant. “We set out to establish a sustainable trust whose funding benefit will be available in perpetuity […]
Barry Streek The South Africa-Zimbabwe border is leaking like a sieve with more than 200 holes in the security fence around the Beitbridge border post, army patrols that only come on duty at 10pm and widespread fraud and corruption. This has been reported by the National Assembly’s portfolio committee on home affairs. “We saw many […]
Glenda Daniels The grey area of what constitutes “unwanted” sexual conduct in the workplace will become clearer when a Labour Court case brought on behalf of a woman by the Women’s Legal Centre in Cape Town is heard in November. This will be the first time in South Africa that there is a claim for […]
Jaspreet Kindra “I have never been HIV-positive. I have never had Aids. It was part of a propaganda plot,” says Peter Mokaba, who read reports in some newspapers last year about his death. The former deputy minister of environmental affairs and tourism, who was dropped by President Thabo Mbeki from his ministerial berth after the […]
EDUCATION minister Kader Asmal’s Working Group for the National Institute for Higher Education has called for submissions for a university to be established in Mpumalanga. The submissions should identify programmes and skills that need to be developed in the province, including the role that the existing education infrastructure such as colleges could play. Working Group […]
Cheryl Goodenough Deputy Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism Joyce Mabudafhasi has called on the youth to make their voices heard on environmental issues and to mobilise ahead of the World Summit for Sustainable Development, to be held in Johannesburg next year. Mabudafhasi made her call to the 400 delegates from 27 countries who converged […]
Ngwako Modjadji The Land Claims Commission in the Northern Province is investigating the self-styled king of the Babirwa, Moses Mangena, who is allocating land he claims was removed from his people during apartheid. Mangena has lodged formal restitution claims for Bakgalaka and Nkuna land in the Lenyenye township. Land Claims Commission project officer Kgotatso Mokgakane […]
Women flocked to a Johannesburg hotel recently to learn how to solve their bedroom woes Mail & Guardian reporter South African husbands, partners or lovers would probably have loved to be a fly on the wall on the Park Hyatt hotel ballroom in Rosebank, Johannesburg, on Tuesday night. The conversation over the foie gras and […]
MPUMALANGA’S Attorney Council, which represents 433 mostly white attorneys in the province, agreed on Thursday to amend its constitution to make the body more representative. MAC spokeswoman Constanze van der Walt said the organisation signed a declaration of intent agreeing to constitutional changes and restructuring during discussions with the Mpumalanga chapters of the Black Lawyers […]
whipping boy The KwaZulu-Natal season is still in full swing and on Saturday comes the chance for a choice selection of sprinters to show what they are made of in the R250 000 grade one Mercury Sprint at Clairwood Park. The Mercury is a weight-for-age event, meaning that in these final weeks of the season […]
Thuli Nhlapo Two government departments are divided over plans by a state oil prospecting company, to extend its operations into the war-torn Sudan. The Department of Foreign Affairs has warned the Department of Mineral and Energy Affairs that plans by Soekor, a state-owned oil and gas exploration and production company, to extend its operations into […]
Byron Kennedy in London Just two of the five major South African companies listed on the London Stock Exchange will be included in the FTSE 4good indices when they go live at the end of July. South African Breweries (SAB) and Dimension Data both meet the required standards and are poised to join one of […]
MAIL & GUARDIAN REPORTER, Johannesburg | Friday SOUTH African husbands, partners or lovers would probably have loved to be a fly on the wall on the Park Hyatt hotel ballroom in Rosebank, Johannesburg, on Tuesday night. The conversation over the foie gras and wine was positively scandalous. “Oh my God!” shrieked a woman standing near […]
Stephen Gray Bloomsbury and Beyond: The Friends and Enemies of Roy Campbell by Joseph Pearce (Bloomsbury) With the centenary of South Africa’s macho poet, Roy Campbell, in view he was born on October 2 1901 Joseph Pearce has taken the opportunity for a timely reappraisal. Despite his curious title, the work is a straight account […]