TANZANIAN exports to the European Union (EU) increased by 74% to 405 million euros in 2000, compared to the previous year, thanks to the lifting of a ban on EU fish imports from Lake Victoria, the European Commission (EC) delegation here said Monday. “Fish exports now account for 28% of the total value of Tanzania’s […]
SHAREHOLDERS in South African media, entertainment and telecoms group Johnnic Communications (Johncom) on Monday approved the unbundling of Johncom’s stake in mobile phone company M-Cell. Johnnic Senior Corporate Finance Manager Monica Steinlechner said all shareholders present at the meeting voted in favour of the move. Johncom is distributing the bulk – 34,4% of a total […]
EGYPT on Sunday condemned an Israeli air raid which took out a Syrian radar base in Lebanon, branding it an “unjustified provocation” and a badly-timed escalation of the regional situation. “It’s an unjustifiable Israeli escalation that comes at a moment when contacts are underway to calm the situation in the Middle East region” and resume […]
GUERRILLAS in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have freed a Swedish hostage after 45 days of captivity in exchange for a second-hand Volvo truck, the Swedish television news programme Rapport said on Saturday. The evening newspaper Expressen said Bjoern Rugsten, 33, was freed by the Mai Mai group thanks to the […]
London | Tuesday ZIMBABWES main opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai urged Britain not to turn its back on its troubled former colony during a meeting with new Foreign Secretary Jack Straw on Monday. Tsvangirai, leader of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), met Straw at the Foreign Office for the first time since Straw replaced Robin […]
KENYAS President Daniel arap Moi has called for the death penalty for those who deliberately infected their sexual partners with the HIV virus, which can lead to Aids, and life imprisonment for rapists. “The time has come for those who deliberately infect others to die and those who rape to be jailed for life,” Moi […]
THE Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA) on Sunday said it had agreed to extend a R320-million ($40-million) loan to expand the Mozal aluminium smelter in Mozambique. The completion of the second stage of the smelter will double its output to 506_000 tonnes of aluminium per year, and will cost one billion dollars, the bank […]
A REBEL leader in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) on Monday said more than 100,000 refugees from the neighbouring Central African Republic (CAR) were in urgent need of help. “More than 100,000 Central Africans” have crossed the Oubangui river into areas in northeast DRC controlled by the Congolese Liberation Front (FLC), said the rebel […]
STATE-run radio Nigeria, which boasts being the largest radio network in Africa, is celebrating its 50th anniversary. The radio, established in 1951, is the oldest in Nigeria and has a reputation for employing and training most of the country’s known broadcasters. The radio gave birth in 1962 to the Voice of Nigeria, the international service, […]
THE International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Sunday scolded the Congo-Brazzaville government for excessive spending, massive customs fraud and the slow pace of privatisation, saying the country could not yet qualify for debt relief. An IMF delegation visiting oil-rich Congo said money doled out to the country’s bloated civil service would make it difficult to meet […]
THE Kalashnikov rifle is one of the past century’s greatest inventions, Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi said as he welcomed Mikhail Kalashnikov to Libya, sources quoted by Interfax news agency said. “The Kalashnikov assault rifle is one of the most important inventions of the 20th century and will long remain so for most countries in the […]
HEAVY flooding on Sunday left about 200 families homeless in Nigeria’s central Benue State, official radio Nigeria reported. The affected residents of Ogbadigbo municipality were taking refuge in churches and mosques in the area, the radio said. The rains lasted for about two hours, it said. – AFP
Kampala | Sunday MORE than 240 people have been killed in a violent witch hunt around the town of Aru in northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) during the past two weeks, the Ugandan military said on Saturday. The lynchings appear to have started when a rumour spread in the border area that witches possessed […]
GRIFFIN SHEA, Harare ZIMBABWE’S powerful trade unions on Saturday declared a two-day national stayaway for next week, despite warnings from government that the protest over fuel prices was illegal. The Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) decided after a special meeting Saturday “to carry out a two-day mass national protest on Tuesday July 3 and […]
EMSIE FERREIRA, Cape Town | Saturday TEN years ago the foundation stones of apartheid fell when the laws that divided people into black and white and forced them to live apart were wiped from South Africa’s statute books. The Population Registration Act of 1950, which required that everybody be classified at birth as belonging to […]
Cape Town | Saturday RESEARCHERS in South Africa and Britain have isolated the gene that causes retinitis pigmentosa, a leading cause of inherited blindness affecting one million people worldwide, a report said on Friday. Two scientists from the University of Cape Town and one from Britain have identified the culprit gene as RP13, which carries […]
Pilanesberg | Sunday SOUTH African President Thabo Mbeki, several ministers and some 60 journalists on Saturday ended an extraordinary meeting aimed at mending the troubled relationship between his government and the press, a report said. Mbeki closed the two-day meeting in Pilanesberg northwest of Johannesburg with an admission that government was partly to blame for […]
Alec Hogg boardroom talk In a week when Naspers kept faith with its spend-now-harvest-later philosophy, Johann Rupert’s Venfin progressed its claim to being the most astutely positioned media business of them all. It is also well positioned to move on Naspers itself should the country’s largest media group stumble in the most critical 12 months […]
Glenda Daniels Consumers have to prepare for massive tariff hikes as privatisation plans by the government steamroll ahead. The cost to the consumer of the privatisation of electricity, water, telephone, transport and municipal services is going to be exorbitant in cash terms. And in delivery terms, huge questions are emerging. But this is not going […]
Adrienne Carlisle and Nawaal Deane Hoosein Mohamed, a senior partner in a prominent Cape Town law firm, was arrested by the Scorpions on Wednesday for milking the Road Accident Fund (RAF) of large portions of the pay-outs meant for indigent victims. His law firm, H Mohamed and Associates, first hit headlines in 1999 when the […]
Sipho Seepe no blows barred Stripped of all the hype and pomp, the Millennium African Recovery Programme (MAP) amounts to no more than Africans committing themselves to continental economic recovery, sustainable development and democratic governance. It is a recycling of ideas articulated by leaders such as Kwame Nkrumah, Julius Nyerere and our own Mangaliso Sobukwe […]
David Macfarlane and Glenda Daniels This week South Africa celebrated the 46th anniversary of the Freedom Charter a nostalgic reflection on a utopian moment in our history. Considering the numerous ways in which we now fall short of this ideal, it is timely to ask what possibilities utopian thinking still holds for achieving social equality. […]
Ntuthuko Maphumulo Today’s soccer stars play for money but the heroes of yesteryear often played to entertain the fans without planning for the future. Top former players are seen today begging on the streets and no one wants to take responsibility for them. Former Bafana Bafana defender Sizwe Motaung has nothing to show for his […]
Industrialist Natie Kirsh has lost millions on a fraudulent second-hand insurance policy operation. Now he’s gunning for his business partner, writes Belinda Anderson Nathan (Natie) Kirsh is suing his long-time confidant and business partner, Charles Stride, for millions. This follows the mother of all bust-ups after a business venture involving the sale of second-hand endowment […]
Bread and Tulips. A middle-aged housewife (Licia Maglietta), her plumber husband and two sons go touring their own country. But when the bus accidentally leaves her behind, fate or circumstance or both guide her towards Venice. There she starts a warm, simple, semi-new life and meets all kinds of ordinary but interesting people. Her husband […]
Mamohloga Ramohlale Cape Town commuters are increasingly becoming victims of gang activity on trains with three people murdered in train violence in the past fortnight. Yet, the Department of Transport says it does not believe this is a trend and has therefore not prepared special measures to combat the crime. The latest incident occurred last […]
Judith February a second look If there was ever any justification for revisiting the 1994 King Report on Corporate Governance, the recently revealed shenanigans at South African Airways (SAA) and Transnet have provided it. The drama that has unfolded has seen accusations flying from Cape Town to London between Jeff Radebe, Minister of Public Enterprises, […]
Thebe Mabanga music Thebe Mabanga The illuminated, garish dcor of the Horror Caf will witness a peculiar vibe when four musicians and a hip-hop DJ take to its stage in the Politburo sessions this Friday. “We are not trying to create a band,” says S’Bu Nxumalo of the Nuff Said Kollective (Nsako), organisers of the […]
Barry Streek French scientist-artist Jean-Marc Philippe came to South Africa this week to promote the world’s largest and, perhaps, wackiest art project: to launch a satellite into orbit with six billion messages that will come back to Earth in 50 000 years’ time. “It is a gift from man of today to the man of […]
Ntuthuko Maphumulo rugby More than a third of the South African under-21 players competing in the Southern Hemisphere Champion-ships in Australia this week are black showing the South African Rugby Football Union’s (Sarfu) development programme is beginning to bear fruit. Sarfu is dedicated to the development of new players, who will be representative of the […]
whipping boy As Durban prepares for the biggest day on the South African racing calendar, with bitter disputes and possible legal challenges again hanging over the July, racing goes ahead with a truly horrendous eight-race programme at Greyville on Saturday night. While the blaze fanned by trainer Mike de Kock’s protest against the weight allocated […]
Barry Streek About 7,5-million people in South Africa still have to be provided with adequate housing despite more than five million people being given shelter in the past six years. Since 1994 about 1,129-million houses have been built, and secured tenure, running water, sanitation and electricity provided. Minister of Housing Sankie Mthembi-Mahanyele says the provision […]