A SOUTH Korean court on Friday ordered the liquidation of the ailing Dong-Ah Engineering and Construction Company, a lead contractor for an ambitious project to build a canal across the Libyan desert. Libya’s waterway project is the largest of Dong-Ah’s overseas contracts and is worth $6.5bn. It has completed 98% of the work on the […]
STRIKING workers at the Lilongwe Water Board, the only water supplier in Malawi’s capital, have turned off the taps to demand a 100% pay hike and better working conditions, workers said on Friday. “We are not re-connecting the water until our demands are met,” one worker said, on condition of anonymity. Employees at the parastatal […]
AT least 42 people were killed on Friday and Saturday in heavy fighting between government troops and militia opponents battling for control of the port in the Somali capital Mogadishu, residents said. The fighting, the most intense in the city in months, pitted soldiers of the Transitional National Government of President Abdiqassim Salad Hassan against […]
MARIANNE MERTEN, Cape Town | Friday WE are divided and we will remain divided. Lets vote and go home, an African National Congress member of Parliaments ethics committee proposed. And for the first time ever the committee voted – mostly along party political lines. Minutes earlier Pan Africanist Congress MP Patricia de Lille had also […]
THAILAND wants to double trade with South Africa over the next few years, the country’s trade minister, Adisai Bodharamik, said in Johannesburg on Thursday. Bodharamik, speaking at Thailand’s Trade Exhibition at the Sandton Convention Centre, in northern Johannesburg, said trade between the two countries had exceeded $400-million during the last few years with significant growth […]
A SOUTH African defence forces helicopter came under fire in eastern KwaZulu-Natal province as police and soldiers mounted a joint operation after the deaths of at least seven people in faction fighting, a police officer said on Thursday. Captain At Slinger said the Oryx helicopter was not hit in the volley of automatic gunfire on […]
AUTHORITIES detained more than 21_000 South Africans along with foreigners at a detention centre between 1996 and 1999 because they believed they were illegal immigrants, parliament was told on Thursday. The 21_719 South Africans were released from the Lindela repatriation centre near Pretoria after being held for up to five days, the report said. The […]
SA Airlink on Thursday took delivery of the first two of thirty ERJ135 Regional Jets ordered from Brazilian manufacturer Embraer. The aircraft will join SA Airlink’s existing fleet of Jetstream 41 aircraft and will open up new opportunities for the airline. Another two jets are expected in August. The new jets are capable of speeds […]
US oil group Exxon Mobil on Thursday briefly shut its 500 000 barrels-per-day oil export terminal in southeast Nigeria after protestors broke into the site, officials said. In London and New York, oil prices rose because the reports of the closure. “A group of protesters on Thursday morning forced their way into the Qua Iboe […]
Jaspreet Kindra The ruling African National Congress’s alliance partners the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) and the South African Communist Party are unlikely to field a candidate against President Thabo Mbeki next year. “Unless the current leadership continues down the self-destructive path,” adds a senior alliance leader referring to Minister of Safety and […]
Liverpool_s fast-maturing striker could make the difference in the FA Cup final Neal Collins The good news for Liverpool fans going into Saturday_s fascinating FA Cup final against Arsenal at the Millennium stadium in Cardiff is this: Michael Owen looks unstoppable. The bad news? That rugged Red rearguard of Sammi Hyypia and Stephane Henchoz allowed […]
Glenda Daniels The Commission for Gender Equality has 11 new commissioners who aim to create a new vision for women in the millennium, starting with a national gender summit in August. The new full-time commissioners are theologian Bafana Khumalo, academic Sheila Meintjes, rural expert Nombulelo Siqwana-Ndulo and Gertrude Fester, a Western Cape gender specialist. They […]
The Cats and the Sharks will be playing for a home semifinal in the last round of the Super 12 Andy Capostagno Alan Solomons has the right idea. Asked about the complexities of qualification for the semi- finals of the Super 12 he said, _I don_t get involved. Pieter Rossouw is my mathematician. He goes […]
HOTEL owners along the Wild Coast were this week exhorted to join forums for the Wild Coast Spatial Development Initiative to help speed up infrastructure delivery and highlight impediments in the way of progress. Gernot Ott, programme manager for the Support to the Wild Coast SDI programme and East Cape Development Corporation investment manager Martin […]
EGYPTIAN authorities have arrested a man for having five permanent wives – one more than permitted under Islamic law – and for briefly marrying 29 underage girls over the past two years, police said on Thursday. Self-professed devout Muslim Sayed Ragab al-Sawarki, 51, was taken into custody on Wednesday on his return to Cairo from […]
Aids is the new struggle. Yet again civil society is mobilising to fill the vacuum left by government. Once more the private sector is stirring, recognising that the present situation is unsustainable. Many Aids activists are old hands who learnt their craft in the era of apartheid. But where once they fought an immoral and […]
Paul Kirk As HIV/Aids and apartheid-era town planning take their toll on cemetery space, Durban may soon have nowhere to bury its dead. “We have a problem. While old-style town planning has played a role, HIV/Aids is making the situation far worse,” says Royal Ntombela, director of cemeteries and crematoria in the Durban Metro Council. […]
Glenda Daniels crossfire Incontestably the African National Congress is the best party to rule. But last weekend’s advertisement in a Sunday newspaper highlights a potentially catastrophic weakness in the party and among its allies a propensity for dredging up phantom enemies. The full-page advertisement says the media is a platform for rightwing forces consisting, we […]
M&G reporter The Dolphinarium at Seaworld on the Durban beachfront is very popular with pre-school and primary school children. The pool arena is a site of excitement, as the kids cheer and shout at the performing aquatic mammals. Judy Mann-Lang, Seaworld education manager, says the intelligence displayed by the dolphins is the magnet that attracts […]
A NURSE and ambulance driver suspected of negligence after a pregnant woman fell out of the back of a speeding ambulance and died, have been suspended from work. Northern Province health MEC Sello Moloto said on Thursday that the nurse and driver from Tintsaolo Hospital in Acornhoek, were given compulsory leave on Wednesday and immediately […]
Andrea Burgener food It_s a great favourite with vegetarians and the less texture-phobic, but tofu is still a much maligned ingredient, with many seeing it simply as an animal protein substitute. Understandably, viewed as an alternative to flame-grilled cattle loin, the standard flabby, white blocks of fresh, untreated tofu appear to stand no chance on […]
Paul Kirk Unfortunately for Director Henry Manzi, the newly appointed head of the Durban Metro Police, he can choose his friends but not his relatives. In the latest edition of Metro Beat, a free magazine given to Durban ratepayers, Manzi admits to having no close personal friends. He is quoted as saying: “Friends might ask […]
Nawaal Deane After a five-year suspension an inspector in the Department of Public Works in East London is being charged for allegedly defrauding the department of R450 000. But the suspension has cost the department close to R400 000 because Dennis Maart, a building inspector, is still on a full salary and it has taken […]
ALMOST 4_000 municipal workers in Mpumalanga on Wednesday marched on the South African Local Government Association (Salga) to demand a 10% wage increase. SA Municipal Workers Union (Samwu) demonstrators also briefly picketed Salgas regional headquarters in Nelspruit to demand a minimum wage of R2_000 for all municipal workers countrywide, in addition to an across-the-board 10% […]
Stuart Jeffries The Consolations of Philosophy by Alain de Botton (Penguin) Once, in Portugal, Alain de Botton found that he could not have sex with his girlfriend. It could have been a humiliating moment, but, fortunately, a few months earlier he had read the 21st chapter of the first volume of Montaigne_s Essays. There Montaigne […]
The government could find itself in court again for its failure to supply promised anti-retroviral drugs Paul Kirk The government is likely to face a new legal battle after temporarily halting the use of a drug, nevirapine, that prevents mother-to-child infection Last year the national Department of Health promised to begin widespread trials of the […]
whipping boy The easiest races from which to harvest winners are maiden plates _ which are restricted to horses that have not yet won. It is in these races that as-yet- unknown future champions come up against animals of modest ability, some of which may never savour a victory. When horses of widely differing ability […]
AIDS activists in Kenya on Thursday urged MPs to include “life-saving safeguards” when reviewing legislation concerning drug patents. Kenyan legislators are currently reviewing the Industrial Property Bill which, as it stands, conforms with World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules on countries’ rights to, in certain circumstances, overcome patent restrictions. Paralllel imports are re-purchased drugs from countries […]
Dale T McKinley A Second Look In the midst of what really amounts to yet another, if more publicised, round of tripartite alliance power politicking, it is all too easy to forget that there are much larger and more important socio-economic issues at stake for the majority of South Africans. Given that the labour movement […]
A decision is expected soon on whether criminal charges will be brought against Matthews Phosa. Justin Arenstein reports Forensic investigators are finalising a secret 13-month fraud probe into former Mpumalanga premier Matthews Phosa. The probe, spearheaded by private sector forensic auditors in the Eastern Cape to prevent leaks and intimidation, is believed to have uncovered […]
Stefaans Brmmer The Office of the President refused this week to comment on a second letter in the media supporting the theories of a conspiracy against President Thabo Mbeki this time from Aids dissident David Rasnick. First, the Sunday Times carried a letter, in the form of a paid advertisement, signed by 11 prominent black […]
UGANDAN-BACKED rebels in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have accused government troops and their Zimbabwean allies of attacking a rebel position in the northwest of the country. The attack took place Tuesday on “our defensive position in Lusombo,” Jean-Pierre Bemba, the leader of the Congo Liberation Front (FLC) said late on Thursday. “Our forces […]