Soweto residents are calling on authorities to intervene as Eskom continues to cut off their electricity Glenda Daniels The African National Congress stands to lose substantial support in Soweto if it does not intervene in the township’s electricity crisis arguably the most serious crisis the biggest township in the country has faced since democracy. Soweto […]
Stephen Bierley tennis Should Pete Sampras reach his eighth Wimbledon final next month, he would do well to make sure Bill Clinton is nowhere in the vicinity of SW19. When his country’s former president took his seat at Roland Garros on Wednesday Andre Agassi had just won the opening set of his quarterfinal against France’s […]
Barry Streek South Africa holds the world record for the recycling of tin cans, Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism Mohammed Valli Moosa has disclosed. The “Collect-a-Can” programme recycled as much as 63% of the cans used in the country and provides informal employment for an estimated 30 000 people. “The sterling work being done […]
Iscor and its auditors have a struggle on their hands to clarify the embattled steel giant’s debt position Mungo Soggot The auditors for Iscor, the mining and steel producer, this week conceded that the company’s level of debt was unclear from its balance sheet and said that they were seeking to clarify the figures in […]
Fred Esbend The provision of primary health care in the Eastern Cape is hanging in the balance after the provincial MEC for Health, Dr Bevan Gogqana, refused to bail out the western district of Nelson Mandela, which encompasses Port Elizabeth, Uitenhage and Despatch. A gloomy picture of the state of health services in the area […]
The new MINI is destined to take its place in the pantheon of the greats James Siddall In the months and years to come I may well God willing get to indulge in all manner of motoring clichs, like booming from Los Angeles to New York in a porno-red Corvette with Springsteen’s Born To Run […]
Paul Kirk When guests at the Penwarn Country Lodge sit down for mid-afternoon tea, they’re joined by the wildlife. A caracal one of Africa’s smallest wild cats can be seen near the hotel door eating his dog pellets, while inside a full-grown otter is fast asleep in a dark spot of the bar. It seems […]
Lots still to play for in Soccer City double-header Ntuthuko Maphumulo The South African soccer season will end this weekend with a great double-header. (Of course, boardroom wrangling could force a further match, a replay between Bloemfontein Celtic and Bush Bucks but more of that later.) The two games to be staged at FNB stadium […]
Cosmas Desmond crossfire The import of luxury cars, such as BMWs, 4x4s and, particularly, Alfa Romeos, should surely be banned by the government, since this country obviously lacks the infrastructure to sustain travel in such cars. There are thousands of square kilometres in South Africa where these vehicles could not travel without damaging their suspension. […]
Shirley Kossick new fiction Anita Brookner habitually limits her fictional cast and her 20th novel, The Bay of Angels (Viking), is no exception. The narrative centres on Zo Cunningham whose widowed mother’s second husband takes her to live outside Nice and buys Zo a flat in London. With her wonderful gift for precise description, Brookner […]
Tim Wood in New York Hedge funds run the world. They command mighty balance sheets that can ruin a currency in hours or shape investment fashions for months. They also unwind spectacularly when things go wrong, but generally they are an investor’s dream with a safety net for the down times. The problem is that […]
JOHANNESBURG | Friday WHITE males still dominate South African business, but the situation is slowly changing, according to a report published on Thursday. The report, by Deloitte and Touche Human Capital Corporation, says black women fill just six percent of business positions in South Africa, where blacks make up 78% of the population and whites […]
Andy Capostagno rugby The countdown to the first Test match of the season has begun. On Sunday Harry Viljoen will trim his Plettenberg Bay squad of 32 down to 26 and three days later four more players will fall away to leave us with the 22 who will line up against France at Ellis Park […]
Glenda Daniels The Johannesburg High Court this week found in favour of a handyman who worked at the brothel The Ranch, in a civil case brought against the Ministry of Safety and Security. Matthew Palmer claimed R800 000 in damages for brutal assault and unlawful arrest and detention when the police raided The Ranch in […]
Mboniso Sigonyela The much-awaited review of the King committee will be out for public comment before the end of July. It could not have come at a better time as more and more listed companies continue to flout the original recommendations, especially the one against joining the position of chairperson of the board and that […]
Thebe Mabanga TELEVISION The sport-orientated e.tv doccie-soap The Summit this week began a second, 13-week season with swagger and grace as the spotlight fell on dance sport. The previous season focused on boxing and kept 420 000 viewers glued to their screens each week. “In this series, we look at dance sports as a popular […]
TENS of thousands of people who fled fighting in the Central African Republic capital Bangui are sheltering from heavy rain in nearby forests, eating wild fruit to survive, witnesses said on Wednesday. Unconfirmed estimates of the exodus, mainly of women, children and elderly people, range up to 50 000 in the wake of a failed […]
Sechaba ka’Nkosi A retired public prosecutor from the Johannesburg Magistrate Courts’ traffic division has launched a lone crusade against wheel clamping and fining at shopping malls. Roy Welsh has embarked on a mission to put the two practices on trial, believing that they violate motorists’ constitutional rights to a free and fair trial. He is […]
Glenda Daniels The Department of Labour has slammed employers for using “racist assumptions” as excuses not to hire black people and to test prospective employees for HIV/Aids. In the latest Department of Labour equity report, 31% of employers cited HIV/Aids as a barrier to implementing equity. The equity legislation was formulated by the government to […]
Peta Lee She-Mail Ever dropped a pumpkin from a respectable height and watched it splatter into mushy pieces on concrete? That’s more or less what happens to babies and toddlers who aren’t strapped into car seats during an accident. “They look just like smashed pumpkins,” says Maxine Hall, general manager of Durban’s Amahosp Medical Rescue […]
If a political party is intent on posing as a paragon of virtue it would be wise to behave like one. The Democratic Alliance has been prone to postures of this kind. Yet, for the second time in the six months since it took power in the city of Cape Town, it has been found […]
ANGOLANS will enjoy risk-free viewing of the solar eclipse of June 21 thanks to a government expenditure of three million dollars on protective glasses, the science and technology ministry said on Tuesday. The total eclipse, which will cross Angola along a 200km band, will last the longest – more than four and a half minutes […]
REBELS in Sierra Leone have released 150 children, among them 40 girls, from an eastern stronghold in Kailahun, the UN Children’s Fund Unicef announced on Tuesday. The children, aged eight to 18 years old, were freed on Monday and airlifted Tuesday to Daru, some 50km away where they were received by staff from the aid […]
EMSIE FERREIRA, Cape Town | Wednesday TWELVE sugar cane farms in eastern South Africa have been torched and about 1_000 black families are occupying portions of 63 sugar farms in a land dispute that has turned violent, a farmer said on Tuesday. Police and soldiers have been on the farms since last week to protect […]
KIGALI | Thursday RWANDAN Hutu rebels have suffered major losses in the bloodiest outbreak of fighting the country has seen for years, losing 150 men in a clash with government troops, according to the army. The Rwandan army said it had killed at least 150 Hutu extremist rebels on Wednesday as they tried to enter […]
HARARE | Thursday CHENJERAI Hitler Hunzvi, the militant leader of Zimbabwe’s liberation war veterans who died on Monday, has been declared a national hero by the ruling party. The staunch ally of President Robert Mugabe will be buried on Friday at the North Korean-built Heroes’ Acre, a shrine traditionally reserved for prominent members of the […]
DEFENCE lawyers on Tuesday finished their summing up in the case of two nuns accused by a Belgian court of taking part in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda that claimed up to 800_000 lives. The two lawyers representing one of the nuns, Sister Kizito, rejected the testimony of prosecution witnesses, describing their statements as a […]
AUTHORITIES in eastern Nigeria have closed down a local government-run orphanage while an investigation is carried out into child trafficking and prostitution charges, an official said on Tuesday. The Umuoji Motherless Babies’ Home is run by officials of the Idemili North local government. Authorities had become suspicious last week and had raided the home and […]
TANZANIA?S vice-president Omar Ali Juma died late on Wednesday of a heart attack. , the country’s president announced on national radio. ?He was normal for the whole of yesterday and actively took part in the visit of DRC president Joseph Kabila and Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni,” said president Benjamin Mkapa. Mkapa described Juma, a trained […]
BLACK and white Namibian farmers joined forces on Monday to put pressure on the government to speed up land reform to avoid Zimbabwe-style farm invasions, The Namibian reported on Tuesday. “Although many of our people … need land to improve their living conditions, political anarchy, violence, land-grabbing and farm invasions and mismanagement should be avoided […]
THE Namibian government has spent about N$300-million in fighting HIV-Aids over the last 10 years, Health Deputy Minister Richard Kamwi told Parliament. Kamwi said more money is needed to make the anti-retroviral drugs available to Namibians. According to Kamwi the use of condoms by sexually active adults has risen from one per cent in 1992 […]
HARARE | Wednesday ZIMBABWE war veterans threatened on Tuesday to boycott the funeral of their controversial leader, Chenjerai Hitler Hunzvi, if the government fails to award him national hero status, the state news agency said. Hunzvi, who led a bloody campaign of invasions of white commercial farms which started last year, died here Monday from […]