A KENYAN minister has predicted the imminent collapse of the country’s motor industry due to the influx of cheap imports. Labour Minister, Joseph Ngutu made the predictions at the 13th International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) conference at Mbagathi near Nairobi on Thursday. He said the flooding of the local market with cheap cars, […]
Barry Streek South African statistics officials are determined that this year’s census will be the most accurate in the country’s history but it won’t include questions about whether people are HIV-positive or have Aids. More than 40-million South Africans will be asked 69 questions based on where they sleep on the night of October 9, […]
Alec Hogg boardroom talk If the way one handles money is the measure of a man, Bellville’s IT whizz-kid Mark Shuttleworth ranks right down there with former South African cricket captain Hansie Cronje. The manner in which greenbacks corrupted his spirit may have been subtler, but like the disgraced cricketer, it’s been effective. Many people […]
The company’s new mining division will be attractive fare for global mining majors hungry for bigger exposure to iron ore Stewart Bailey Iscor’s soon-to-be-created mining division has been tipped as a star performer on the JSE Securities Exchange, but it is unlikely to grace the bourse’s resource board for very long. The division, to be […]
Alex Sudheim theatre In Seeing Red the first “fully-fledged” theatrical production by South Africa’s most famous “white man with a weapon” writer/director Greig Coetzee has essentially compressed two plays into one. One is a sharp, acerbic satire of life in a student digs in Pietermaritzburg in the 1980s. Loaded with biting humour and classic farce, […]
ONE of at least 20 foreigners being held captive by a Mai Mai tribal militia in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has warned that the use of force to secure their release would endanger their lives, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said. The New York-based advocacy group said in statement it had listened to a […]
Nona Cummings Body Language ‘A fib,” granny taught me, “is never a good thing.” Especially those epics that require sustaining like boasting at a party that you once climbed Everest when it was a koppie near Ficksburg. But despite the risk of exposure involved, I, like many others, still lie, flatter, exaggerate and outright deceive. […]
Scotch Tagwireyi and Nicolas Dieltiens The South African Reserve Bank has managed to hide alleged evidence of maladministration that is in the hands of its former employee Nicolaas Alant by reaching an out of court settlement with him. Wednesday’s agreement forces Alant to return all documents he obtained from the bank while working there. He […]
Barry Streek After shock findings of widespread financial mismanagement and lack of controls, the Office of the Auditor General refused to approve a financial audit of the statements for the now- defunct Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA) for the 1999/2000 financial year. Because of the significance of these findings, “I do not express an opinion of […]
Neal Collins soccer Lucas Radebe spent the tail end of the season injured at Leeds United. Quinton Fortune played at Manchester United only when Ryan Giggs wanted a rest. Mark Fish had an up and down time after the switch from Bolton to Charlton. But if it’s a real South African success story in the […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Pretoria | Friday US Secretary of State Colin Powell has blamed President Robert Mugabe for much of Zimbabwe’s woes and called for tougher action to stem the crisis in that country. Powell told journalists in Pretoria he had discussed the Zimbabwe situation with South African Foreign Minister Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma in bilateral talks […]
Fiona Macleod Douw Grobler, head of the Kruger National Park’s game capture unit, has been fired for the unauthorised sale of animals from the park’s disease-free buffalo breeding project. An internal disciplinary committee found Grobler guilty of nine charges of misconduct, five of which constituted dismissable offences. Grobler, a vet with an international reputation for […]
Barry Streek The Speaker of the National Assembly, Frene Ginwala, had taken the lead in unjustifiably challenging Parliament’s standing committee on public accounts (Scopa), its chair, Gavin Woods, said this week. “As both the chair of the committee and as a member of Parliament I see it as a constitutional responsibility that I defend the […]
Adam Sweeting CD OFTHEWEEK Reveal (Warner Bros) is the second album REM have made since the departure of drummer Bill Berry, and (on disc at least) it finds them settling into a convincing identity as a trio. The puzzle is how to fit the born-again REM into their own 20-year legacy. While Reveal undoubtedly reveals […]
Malegapuru Makgoba a Second Look The challenges facing science and its development today are no longer predominantly technical, but largely social. The future of science lies in three areas: ethics, communication and attending to societal concerns. The need for science to be understood by the public and for scientists to communicate better, as well as […]
Jemimah Crawford Atlas of World History ; Children’s Atlas; GUIDE TO SPACE (Dorling Kindersley) Dorling Kindersley has made an art, and a fortune, out of publishing irritating adult books with a paint/travel/cook-by-numbers approach. They’re the kind of books you’d give to your gran on Mother’s Day, but hide from your pretentious friends. They’re also filled […]
FORMER Zambian cabinet and deputy ministers recently dismissed by President Frederick Chiluba, on Thursday apologised to the nation for causing untold suffering to Zambians over the last 10 years under Chiluba’s leadership. Addressing a national development review forum in Lusaka on Thursday, the spokesperson of the group, former Labour minister Edith Nawakwi admitted that the […]
Steven Friedman worm’s eye view Why do we not try to be world class at being ourselves? As so often happens in this country, a sporting controversy may be holding a candle to an important trend in our society. This time, it is the argument over the choice of venue for the 2003 cricket World […]
Timothy Wood American notes In January United States President George W Bush was regarded as an illegitimate usurper who would stumble in the absence of an authoritative mandate. In May he is having an early last laugh with a budget and tax relief package that is nearly everything he campaigned on. Intriguingly, the battle over […]
Barbara Ludman crime Round-up Newton Thornburg’s Cutter and Bone, circa 1976, is a post-apocalyptic novel posing as a thriller: bleak and brilliantly written, with characters you can’t shrug off, some of the best, truest and funniest dialogue you’ll ever read and a tragic and inescapable point. Cutter is Alex Cutter, a Vietnam War veteran whose […]
Jaspreet Kindra At least three members of the provincial executive in Mpumalanga will lose their positions, as recommended by an African National Congress tribunal held in the province in March. ANC national chair Mosiuoa Lekota confirmed the move this week. He said the report, submitted two weeks ago, also recommended the deployment of members from […]
TANZANIA?S third modern large-scale gold mine has started commercial production ahead of its official commissioning in mid-July, a company official said on Friday. “Gold is now pouring out at the mine … all is going on well,” said Roy Meada, general manager of Kahama Mining Corporation Limited, owners of the mine in the remote village […]
WHITE Zimbabwean farmers have offered to give the government one million hectares (almost 2.5m acres) of land for resettlement by poor black farmers, in a bid to jumpstart talks to end more than a year of violence on farms. The proposal also calls for ending any litigation against the government, provides financing for newly resettled […]
Paul Kirk The vice-chancellor of the University of Durban Westville (UDW), Dr Mapule Ramashala, is hanging tough, refusing to resign or retire despite a motion of no confidence lodged against her and a mass exodus of academics. This week UDW lost two more senior academics, Professors John Daniel and Adam Habib, who are both world-renowned […]
Marianne Merten Cape Judge President John Hlope denied this week that the administration of justice had been brought to a standstill by an alleged gang leader. On Wednesday two high-profile People against Gangsterism and Drugs (Pagad) trials were postponed in the Cape High Court when 2 000 supporters of alleged Cape Flats millionaire crime kingpin […]
Letters to the best man Chez Uhuru 228 Musgrave Road iThekwini To:Dr Essop Pahad The Presidency Union Buildings Tshwane Dear Dr Pahad, In recent months I have been plagued by guilt, without being able to identify the source. Every time I have seen our leader on television, heard his inimitable voice on radio, or read […]
Sasha Gear ‘I don’t know if you’ve seen Yizo Yizo?” asks Morris (not his real name), a recently released former prisoner who has spent close to three decades in South African prisons. He is explaining how inmates can tell which of the newcomers have been coerced into “Cape Town”. “Cape Town” is a term used […]
INCUMBENT Chadian President Idriss Deby is well ahead of the other candidates and will be elected in the first round, his party, the Salvation Patriotic Movement and its allies told a press conference in Ndjamena on Thursday. The party officials told journalists that Deby had reportely won seven of the eight districts of the capital […]
David Beresford Another Country There seems to be growing excitement in the world’s laboratories over the success scientists are having in repairing and even enhancing memory in rats and mice, in anticipation of replicating the feat on humans. One’s thoughts on reading such reports must be much the same as would have passed through the […]
Evidence wa ka Ngobeni A top-level scientific investigation has been launched to detect the possibility of a volcanic eruption at a tiny village near Thohoyandou, Northern Province. The probe, being conducted by a team of six scientists, was started two weeks ago after communities from Siloam in the Nzhelele district reported land deformations and mudslides. […]
Can Ginwala, the politician, be accountable to both the ANC and Parliament? Barry Streek The problem facing the increasingly beleaguered Speaker of the National Assembly, Frene Ginwala, is that she is wearing too many political hats. She is a committed and long-standing member of the majority party in Parliament, an elected member of its national […]
Under the watchful eye of the local chief, three sectors of society have joined forces to improve the lives of residents of a North West village Roshila Pillay Anna Moyo is harvesting spinach. It’s a scorching day, which makes her task a laborious one. The spinach she harvests sells for a mere 60c a kilogram […]