PROSECUTORS in the case of five men accused of the 1996 murder of Hard Livings Gang boss Rashaad Staggie, received a major blow on Thursday when Cape High Court Judge John Foxcroft ruled that he would not view video footage taken the night that Staggie was killed. The case against senior members of Pagad is […]
Harare | Saturday MOST of the 12 countries in the southern Africa region will suffer food shortages this year due to a combination of floods and drought, a regional food security warning unit said on Friday. The Southern African Development Community Regional Early Warning Unit (SADC-REWU) said due to an overall drop in regional crop […]
A high-tech company has developed and introduced a new milk-free instant meal for feeding schemes in South Africa. InstaMeal is a protein-enriched, lactose-free instant cereal/porridge made from non-genetically modified soy protein powder, pre-cooked maize meal, sugar and salt. It is prepared by mixing the dry cereal with hot or cold water. The meal is also […]
“DISCREET” negotiations were under way late on Thursday in the Central African Republic capital Bangui between the government and army mutineers who staged an abortive coup, in a bid to avert a “bloodbath”, a well-placed source said. “They want to see that the problem created by the mutineers does not end in a bloodbath,” said […]
NIGERIAN-born boxer David Izonritei’s career took a giant leap forward on Thursday when it was announced that he will be fighting the new heavyweight champion, Hasim Rahman, in Beijing, China on August 4. Legendary boxing promoter, Don King, announced at a press conference in New York that Izon, as the Nigerian boxer is commonly known, […]
FRENCH Prime Minister Lionel Jospin followed in the footsteps of other foreign leaders on Thursday to make a pilgrimage to the prison on Robben Island where former South African president Nelson Mandela spent most of 27 years as a political prisoner. Jospin spent about 45 minutes of the first day of his two-day official visit […]
FALAFEL, a universal food in most of the Middle East, was reincarnated on Thursday as McFalafel at Cairo branches of McDonald’s. The US fast food chain will serve falafel, a fried dish of chickpeas, in McDonald’s hamburger buns and sell each sandwich for about 40 cents. Falafel is traditionally made with seasoning including fennel, parsley, […]
AFRICAN insurance firms and UNAids are to form special committees to plan country-specific strategies to combat the HIV/Aids pandemic, the African Insurers’ Organisation said on Thursday. Jean Kacou Diagou, the organisation’s vice president, said its just-concluded 28th general meeting had ended with a decision to set up these committees in 41 member countries. Diagou said […]
Luanda | Friday THE Luanda government said this week it regrets a decision by South African diamond giant De Beers to suspend its activities in Angola over a contractual dispute. Reacting for the first time to the decision announced by De Beers a week ago, the statement said negotiations had been continuing in a cordial […]
Johannesburg | Saturday TRIBUTES have poured in for South Africa’s Aids icon Nkosi Johnson, who died in the early hours of the Friday morning, commending the courage of the 12-year-old boy who came to symbolise the fight against HIV/Aids and discrimination. The skeletally-thin Nkosi, South Africa’s longest surviving child Aids sufferer, died peacefully at his […]
TWENTY of every 100 pregnant women who attend ante-natal consultations in Mozambican health units are infected with HIV, the virus that causes the lethal disease Aids, according to Martinho Djedje, representative for the Coordinating Council of the Health Ministry, which has been meeting in Maputo since Monday. Djedje said the situation was made worse because […]
HILARY GUSH Johannesburg | Friday A long-running legal battle over the award of South Africa’s lucrative third mobile phone licence to Cell-C took a new twist on Friday, when losing bidder NextCom said it would settle the case out of court. But the row over whether the selection process for the licence winner was flawed […]
Anthony Quinn, the Mexican-born Hollywood star who carved a niche playing larger-than-life, good-hearted ruffians, most famously Zorba the Greek, died in a Boston hospital yesterday, aged 86. His death, from respiratory failure, was announced by the mayor of Providence, Rhode Island, Vincent "Buddy" Cianci. "I was proud to call him a friend," Mr Cianci said.
Barry Streek Property crimes, such as robbery and theft, increased last year and in the first quarter of this year, but the murder rate went down, the first official crime statistics since July last year show. The figures, released this week after an 11-month moratorium on the publication of crime statistics ended, also indicate that […]
Roshila Pillay Estate agencies are up in arms about the new Municipal Services Act which makes property owners responsible for all service charges arrears instead of their tenants. Previously owners were liable only for rates payments and tenants for water and electricity. “I think it puts a huge burden on property owners. I can’t see […]
Chef Dalawar Chaudhry, caterer for the Pakistan cricketers during their tour of England, tells Pete Nichols about Imran Khan, fax orders and paratha breads We first invited the Pakistani team to our west London restaurant, the Tandoori Kebab House, when they were touring in 1974. My father, Abdul-Majid, had always been a very keen cricketer. […]
Bryan Rostron If it’s true that the current election in the United Kingdom is all about style over substance (that is, spin), I should immediately declare an interest (two, actually). For several years I was a colleague of Labour’s powerful prime ministerial spin doctor, Alastair Campbell; then, during a right-wing coup at the mass-circulation Daily […]
The line between affirmative action and racism is a narrow one, which has arguably been crossed by the Road Accident Fund’s new policy to promote black professionals. As we show in this newspaper, the rule is quite simple: no whites can be used in the legal defence of the fund, unless formal permission is obtained. […]
Alec Hogg boardroom talk The brave face South Africa’s micro-lenders put on to last year’s changes in legislation affecting them has started to crack. The naked reality was apparent in financial results released during the past fortnight by three listed micro-lenders Abil, Unifer and Thuthukani which showed that what was once a licence to print […]
Robert Kirby CHANNELVISION Any television documentary bearing the name Cliff Bestall is sure to be of distinctive quality. Last week’s Special Assignment was no exception, an extended programme about the so-called numbers gangs that conduct a reign of terror in South African prisons. Any details of the daily brutalities dished out by the gang members […]
Bruce Whitfield Absa’s main focus in the year ahead is to lower its costs and become a more efficiently run business. It has a cost to income ratio of 63%, substantially higher than its retail banking competitors, and CEO Nallie Bosman admits it is “totally unacceptable”. It’s appointed a task team, headed by a former […]
Marianne Merten The legal battle over video recordings of the 1996 murder of Hard Living gang boss Rashaad Staggie moves to London courts next week where Reuters and Associated Press (AP) are opposing renewed attempts to obtain original footage. The Cape High Court on Thursday ruled as inadmissible several videotapes that police had seized on […]
Shirley Kossick The Oxford Companion to English Literature (6th edition) edited by Margaret Drabble Ever since Sir Paul Harvey’s first edition of The Oxford Companion to English Literature in 1932, its place as the standard literary reference work for both students and the general reader has been established. With its extensive revisions, updating and more […]
Pule waga Mabe The shortage of doctors in most rural hospitals is a growing concern within the ranks of the Rural Doctors’ Association of South Africa (Rudasa), which is now calling for the national Department of Health to establish a rural health unit. Rudasa’s concern follows the failure of compulsory community service for doctors to […]
Many of the residents of the Joe Slovo informal settlement do not have a regular source of income, writes Vongani Fungene The 2 000-strong Joe Slovo informal settlement sticks out like a sore thumb, nestled adjascent to modest suburbs such as Westdene, Crosby and Westbury. Smoke billows from the more than 1000 tin shacks, catching […]
SOUTH Africa’s longest surviving HIV-positive born child, Nkosi Johnson, has died in his Melville, Johannesburg home. His foster mother, Gail Johnson was at his bedside when he died on Friday morning. Johnson will be remembered as the Aids activist who challenged the government’s Aids policies and united millions of South Africans in the fight against […]
Barry Streek Minister of Safety and Security Steve Tshwete received a light tap on the wrist this week from President Thabo Mbeki for naming three African National Congress stalwarts allegedly plotting to oust him from the presidency. The most Mbeki would say about Tshwete’s statement, given in a reply to a question in a TV […]
Ntuthuko Maphumulo soccer The 2000/2001 season has been one of the longest on record, with many controversial incidents, displays of great soccer and the tragedy of the Ellis Park stampede that left 43 people dead. The championship race is over but the Premier Soccer League (PSL) season is not. There are two games still outstanding […]
In the 1950s severe weather caused worldwide death and destruction estimated at $4-billion a year; by the 1990s that amount had escalated into tens of billions of dollars Charlene Smith Global warming and its effect on the proliferation of infectious diseases has far-reaching implications for areas such as the economy, interstate trade relations and tourism. […]
But unions say training given to teachers on the new curriculum has been pathetic David Macfarlane The massive and controver-sial process of designing an entire new curriculum for South Africa’s state schools is set to take a major step forward as the streamlining of Curriculum 2005 nears completion. But those upon whom the success of […]
PAUL KIRK, Durban | Friday SCHOOL pupils and business people in Durban are being shown shocking video footage of traffic accidents in a bid to make them more responsible drivers – and it seems to be working. Top traffic policeman Principal Provincial Inspector Mervyn Atwell travels with a video camera as well as his copy […]
Hugo Young describes his interview with President Thabo Mbeki Unlike Nelson Mandela, his successor Thabo Mbeki does not in all respects rise above history. Temporally, the apartheid era may have passed, but it remains the formative imprint on the South African psyche and the president never forgets it. A conversation with him reveals the extent […]