Tim Wood American Notes AngloGold CEO Bobby Godsell made pointed remarks about the industry schism caused by gold hedging this week: “There are theological hedgers and theological anti-hedgers. We find ourselves in the middle. We are simply using it as a business instrument, which has served our shareholders pretty well.” At risk of oversimplification, hedging […]
Khadija Magardie An influential United States-based cancer research association has bolstered the already serious charges of scientific misconduct against disgraced oncologist Dr Werner Bezwoda. According to the American Society for Clinical Oncology (Asco), the former University of the Witwatersrand professor falsified the results of more clinical trials for breast cancer treatment than initially thought. The […]
Andy Capostagno rugby Parochial considerations notwithstanding, for those who cherish the endless complexities that league tables throw up, the climax to this year’s Super 12 is the stuff that dreams are made of. Here we are, three weeks away from the semifinals and any four out of 10 teams can still qualify. Only the Blues […]
Marianne Merten South African companies are exploring a new approach to corporate social responsibility through employee-centred initiatives such as matching staff donations to charities made via the payroll. Much of the pressure to move away from a straight “cheque book approach” has come in the wake of increasing global corpworks. Over the past 15 years […]
Matthew Krouse theatre Moments of tedium caused by a slightly overladen script barely detract from the wholesale intrigue of The Great Outdoors. In his most recent play, first performed at the National Arts Festival last year, Neil McCarthy treats the day-to-day issues of white South Africa with playful disdain. Like the people it depicts, The […]
James Hall Swaziland’s Office of Public Prosecutions has announced a crackdown on diviners and traditional doctors who are capitalising on the fears of defendants in court cases to peddle “protection” that will win favourable judicial rulings. “Traditional healers play an important role in the health of people in Swaziland and in my country,” says Director […]
LEADING cement and concrete producer Pretoria Portland Cement is set to acquire a 48% stake in the Zimbabwean cement manufacturer, Portland Holdings, for over R200m, SABC radio news reported on Wednesday. PPC told the public broadcaster an agreement had been reached with Anglo-American Zimbabwe and its associate companies to finalise the deal. It planned to […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Cape Town | Thursday THE biggest trial to date of members of the Muslim vigilante group PAGAD began in a South African high court on Wednesday when three men pleaded not guilty to 138 charges including murder and kidnapping. Ebrahim Jeneker and brothers Abdullah and Ismail Maansdorp are accused of robbing two Cape […]
A 27-year-old Nigerian man, held for months in a detention centre in Switzerland after being refused asylum, died on Tuesday after a struggle with police ordered to forcibly repatriate him. Police said the man, who was not identified, resisted attempts by the two officers to handcuff him prior to escorting him to Zurich airport. After […]
THE Baptist Church in Nigeria is refusing to marry couples unless they present certificates proving they are free of the HIV virus that causes Aids, Nigeria’s Guardian newspaper reported Tuesday. “Baptist ministers should demand a certificate of a HIV/Aids test from would-be couples before they are joined in holy matrimony,” the paper quoted a statement […]
RICHARD Branson on Wednesday launched the Virgin Group of Companies’ latest product in South Africa – bottles of still mineral water. Virgin Water, sourced locally in the Drakensberg mountains, will be sold at the group’s newly acquired South African chain of Virgin Active health clubs, Virgin boss Branson said at a media conference. “We’re experimenting […]
JAN HENNOP, Pretoria | Thursday PALESTINIAN leader Yasser Arafat declared on Wednesday that “we are trying our best” to find peace in the Middle East as he arrived in South Africa for a meeting with ministers of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM). Arafat met later with President Thabo Mbeki, the current chairman of the pro-Palestinian movement, […]
A YOUNG Egyptian bride who was disenchanted with her new husband simply fled during her honeymoon and married another man at a nearby resort, the government daily al-Akhbar reported on Tuesday. Nefissa Abdel Hamid, a 26-year-old servant, left her 38-year-old truck driver husband 20 days after their wedding, and was married again, without having obtained […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Cape Town | Thursday PROSTITUTES who questioned long distance truck drivers in South Africa and took spit samples found that a third of those surveyed always stopped for sex during journeys, and more than half tested HIV-positive, according to a study made public this week. The country’s Medical Research Council said the questions […]
POVERTY elimination strategies should treat women not only as the worst victims of poverty, but also as potential agents of change, Education Minister Kader Asmal said on Monday. In a speech prepared for delivery at the opening of an expert group meeting on water-related environmental education in African cities, Asmal said there was little recognition […]
TWO Congolese politicians were found shot to death on Monday near the southern city of Lubumbashi in what authorities suspect was a politically motivated killing. The bodies of Kienge Lukonde and Kioni Kyanukenbe were discovered early Monday morning in a car by the side of the road, said Kazadi Dikanga, an official in Katanga Province. […]
TWO Englishmen began a 64_000 km journey on foot across four continents, expected to take seven years, from Cape Point in South Africa on Tuesday, local television reported. The adventurers, James Tremayne and David Thompson, intend to follow the trail by the humans who inhabited southern Africa 120_000 years ago and migrated across the world. […]
NASDAQ-listed Quokka Sports, the Australian company that provided the first Internet sports coverage that beat television, has gone bankrupt after burning through A$100m in seed money. News reports quoted founder Alan Ramadan as blaming the fall of the five-year-old San Francisco-based company on a “dramatic downturn in advertising” and the lack of high-speed cable networks […]
DICKSON JERE, Lusaka | Wednesday THE political rift widened within Zambia’s ruling party on Tuesday after a court stopped President Frederick Chiluba ousting over 200 rivals to his unconstitutional re-election bid. Chiluba’s Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD) was to vote on Tuesday on a resolution to kick out more than 200 members who had boycotted […]
PRECARIOUS calm returned to Algeria on Monday after a weekend of further rioting by enraged members of the nation’s Berber ethnic minority that brought the estimated death toll to about 80. Young Berbers went on the rampage in the northeastern Kabylie region after a teenager was shot dead in a police cell on April 18. […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Gaborone | Wednesday THE head of Botswana television news and current affairs Chris Bishop has resigned over government attempts to control broadcasts, Bishop told the South African news agency Sapa. “The journalists at BTV and myself have often been harassed by officialdom. It has rendered the running of TV news impractical,” Bishop said, […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Abidjan | Wednesday AMNESTY International called on Liberia and the international community on Tuesday to halt what it said were abductions, gang rape, torture and murder of unarmed innocents in the west African state. The human rights group claimed an anti-terrorist unit had raped a pregnant woman and stamped on her stomach, causing […]
TWO South Africans on trial for murder in Botswana were not legally extradited to that country, says a justice ministry spokesman. Paul Setsetse said the two men were arrested by South African and Botswana police in the North West province a few weeks ago. However, it subsequently emerged that they had not been legally extradited […]
AT least seven people died and 51 were injured on Sunday when rival fans invaded the pitch during a football match in Lubumbashi in the Democratic Republic of Congo. An eyewitness said victims were trampled to death and asphyxiated when panic broke out. Police intervened using teargas after rival fans began exchanging insults and hurling […]
THE circumstances of many women who had killed their husbands or partners had not been adequately taken into account by the country’s courts, says the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation?s Lisa Vetten. Vetten, who is calling for a presidential pardon for women in abusive relationships who are convicted of murdering their husbands, […]
THE coalition backing Senegal’s President Abdoulaye Wade, winner of a historic presidential election in March 2000, seems to have swept early legislative elections. According to first results issued during the night the Sopi (Change) coalition built around Wade’s liberal Senegalese Democratic Party (PDS) was well ahead of its adversaries, political analysts said. With nearly 50 […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Tuesday IN the years since the landmark Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, the world has forged ahead to feed, clothe and house its people – at a steep environmental expense, organisers of the next summit said. A decade after Rio, world leaders and environmentalists will gather again in Johannesburg in […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Tuesday THE Congress of South African Students (Cosas) is set to clash with the government after it vowed to prevent pupils from going to Gautengs private and former Model C schools, The Star newspaper reports. The student body was also said to have threatened to wreck classrooms at the schools. The […]
SOME 330 skeletons, including those of women and children, have been recovered from a mass grave – dating from Algeria’s bloody independence war 40 years ago – at the village of Cheria, some 430km east of the capital Algiers. The grave could contain as many as 600 bodies, said to have been shot by special […]
THE three men who beat a 14-year-old Bloemfontein schoolboy to death on Friday afternoon and then robbed him of R300 were likely to be arrested soon, police said on Saturday. Francois Kruger was selling sheep with two friends at a roadside in Heidedal when he was attacked and beaten with pipes. Southern Free State police […]
AMAZON.COM on Tuesday reported a 22% increase in sales and a narrower than expected loss for the first quarter, and declared itself on track to reach its profitability goals. The Seattle-based Internet retailer reported a net loss of $234m, or 66 cents a share, for the first quarter, compared with a net loss of $308m, […]
A COURT in mainly Muslim northern Nigeria has sentenced two Christians to one-year jail terms for selling alcohol, a court official said on Friday. A magistrate court in Gusau, the capital of Zamfara state, on Thursday sentenced Anthony Agumu and Frank Idoko each to one year in prison or an option of paying a 10,000 […]