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 […]
MILITANT pro-government “war veterans” have targetted the offices of European-funded orphanages in Zimbabwe, as part of a campaign of intimidation in the nation’s cities, an aid agency director said on Friday. War veterans visited the suburban offices of SOS Children’s Villages Zimbabwe on Thursday seeking to discuss the dismissal of an employee, said Ian Kluckow. […]
US Secretary of State Colin Powell is to travel to several countries in Africa this month before heading to a NATO foreign ministers’ meeting in Hungary. Powell is expected to depart Washington for Mali, South Africa, Kenya, Uganda and possibly Malawi on May 22. – AFP
THE Namibian government will send 300 trainee nurses to the north-central part of the country to help cope with a malaria epidemic that claimed 148 lives in April, health officials said on Thursday. Cases skyrocketed to more than 63 000 following late rains in April in the flood-prone Owambo region, regional health director Naftali Hamata […]
TWENTY-SEVEN people are missing in the sinking of a ferry off the east coast of Madagascar, papers said here Saturday. Press reports said the vessel went down on Thursday with 41 people on board while sailing between the eastern port of Soanierana-Ivongo and the popular tourist island of Sainte Marie, which is some 30 kilometers […]
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 […]
Forty-four people, including two policemen, were arrested for possession and dealing in stolen gold in Welkom on Wednesday, the Diamond and Gold Unit said on Thursday. Superintendent Ernie van Rensburg said the unit had launched a covert operation six months ago targeting two mines in the Welkom and Virginia areas in the Free State. Van […]
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 […]
Mail & Guardian Reporter The Centre for Development and Enterprise (CDE) has released a publication focusing on South Africa’s inability to stimulate economic growth and job creation. The publication is an edited summary of a round-table discussion of private sector economists, business leaders, government officials and the president’s economic adviser, Wiseman Nkuhlu. CDE executive director […]
Letters to the best man Chez Uhuru 228 Musgrave Road iThekwini To: Dr Essop Pahad The Presidency Union Buildings Tshwane Dear Dr Pahad, I was shocked on Sunday night to view, in the security of my own home, a television news report that Tokyo Sexwale has now been appointed as an Honorary Colonel in the […]
Michele Pickover and Verne Harris Brought into operation on March 9 this year, the Promotion of Access to Information Act is intended to be the legislative cornerstone of freedom of information in South Africa. Technically it is sound, drawing on the experiences of drafters and implementers of such legislation in a number of other countries. […]
ELEVEN people were killed when two ferries sank in Benin’s Lake Nokoue early on Wednesday, state radio reported. It said four people were rescued and were hospitalised, but it gave no indication of how many people were on board the ferries. The radio attributed the accidents to heavy rains that had lashed the region since […]
Ntuthuko Maphumulo badminton For the first time in South Africa or Africa a badminton tournament of world importance will be staged on the continent. South Africa will be hosting the sixth world junior championships in November next year. About 30 countries will participate in the tournament, which will determine the world rankings. African Badminton Federation […]
About 30 employees have already completed an adult literacy programme at Hilton College and another 32 are attending classes Jubie Matlou Gladys Dlamini (34) is a mother of two and works as a cleaner at Hilton College for Boys, the famous and exclusive private school outside Pietermaritzburg. Her working day starts at 7am and continues […]
Khadija Magardie Victims of violent crime in South Africa may in future receive financial restitution for their pain and suffering. This is if a recent discussion document, released for public comment and submitted to the Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development Penuell Maduna this week, is favourably received. The South African Law Commission has mooted […]
Paul Kerton Body Language Your partner’s body will change but it doesn’t mean that you should give up sex. As her tummy develops, it can become quite a beautiful erogenous zone in itself. And I don’t know of any man alive who has ever complained when his partner’s breasts increased by a size or two. […]
Belinda Anderson Inthebag, the Woolworths/ Wooltru joint-venture online shopping portal, aims to be profitable by January 2003 and, according to chief executive officer Jessica Knight, is burning less cash than it had expected to in the first year. By June R66-million will have been spent, about R22-million less than the R88-million it had projected. Wooltru […]
Khadija Magardie The Eastern Cape MEC for health this week admitted his department kept a lid on information that peanut butter being fed to indigent children on its school feeding scheme was toxic. Bevan Goqwana said this was because the department lacked evidence that certain suppliers were passing on contaminated peanut butter, and because they […]
Charlotte Mathews The South African Red Cross, the largest humanitarian organisation in the country, is struggling with a financial crisis that it hopes can be resolved within the next few weeks. If not, a wide range of aid projects will be jeopardised. Mandisa Kalako-Williams, vice-president of the Red Cross, said the organisation’s fixed assets were […]
David Beresford Another Country I’ve made an application to Grenoble, France, for the brain operation to deal with my Parkinson’s. Whether I will be accepted, despite being a known admirer of that scourge of Napoleonic France, Lord “‘Oratio” Hornblower, is another matter. I must also confess to a certain anxiety as to whether my schoolboy […]
For the third time in six weeks a Cape Town court has wrapped up a rape and attempted murder case with tough sentences Marianne Merten Karriema Viljoen* was not in court this week when the men who raped, stabbed, slit her throat and left her for dead were sentenced to long periods of imprisonment. The […]
A cellphone service provider has spent R15-million on upgrading Alexandra police station and magistrate’s court Ntuthuko Maphumulo It is a typical busy scene as you drive into Wynberg towards the Alexandra police station and magistrate’s court. There are many people going to the taxi rank, and around the rank are the makeshift stalls of hawkers […]
Charlene Smith crossfire The list of conspirators against President Thabo Mbeki grows ever longer. On Monday I returned home from lending support to a young rape survivor, took out a thick wad of letters from people with HIV in my letter box, and downloaded e-mails to discover that I was leading a right-wing media conspiracy […]
There is market concern that DiData is offering too much for the Nasdaq-listed Proxicom Belinda Anderson If DiData’s bid for Proxicom goes through it will end up with a significantly enhanced global presence in the interactive commerce arena, with numerous world-class clients such as General Electric, Merrill Lynch and America Online. But if its bid […]
Louise Stack and Paula Soggot South Africa’s criminal justice system is in crisis. The crime rate is high and the prisons are overcrowded. The prosecution rate is low and courts are backlogged. The number of cases being prosecuted has been dropping since the mid-1980s. The declining number of cases prosecuted indicates that case backlogs are […]
Peter Robinson cricket There_s no getting away from the record: since a hiccup in Nairobi in October, South Africa have swept aside any and all opposition placed before them. Other than achieving a perfect, 100% success rate, very little more could have been asked of, or provided by, Shaun Pollock and his South African team. […]
Niki Moore They are known as the Bee-Team: a group of about 60 rural youngsters who make a living from selling the fragrant honey from the wild bees that nest in the eucalyptus plantations in Zululand. The teenagers stand by the side of the road, selling wild honey in a variety of containers, including trays, […]
The Menlyn Park Shopping Centre has been given 60 days to comply with safety regulations Roshila Pillay In the week that Makro in Woodmead, Johannesburg, was razed by a fire, the Menlyn Park Shopping Centre in Pretoria was found to be a fire hazard. The R800-million complex, which sees an average of two million people […]
Ken Gooding The World Gold Council (WGC) can’t be particularly pleased with the findings of the report it commissioned from the London Business School (LBS) on the impact of derivatives on the gold market. For the study flies in the face of perceived wisdom and shows that hedging had only a marginal impact on the […]