THE International Monetary Fund (IMF) has agreed for the first time in 17 years to lay down a formula for Sudan to repay its $20bn debts, says Central Bank governor Sabir al-Hassan. Sudanese Finance Minister Abdel Rahim Mahmoud Hamdi had asked IMF managing director Horst Koehler to speed up implementation of the plan. Hassan also […]
LIBYAN leader Moamer Kadhafi lashed out against the United States as being responsible for the AIDS scourge, in a fiery speech during Friday’s closing session of Africa’s biggest ever summit on the disease. “A vaccine and a medicine exists but there is a malevolent plot by capitalists to prevent the world from having it as […]
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, […]
POLICE in Swaziland said on Thursday they had arrested a 40-year-old man in connection with the murders of 29 people, mostly women, whose bodies were found buried in shallow graves in a forest. Four babies were among the dead. Some of the women’s bodies were found lying face down with their hands tied behind their […]
FORMER US President Bill Clinton arrived in Nigeria late on Wednesday ahead of a two-day regional summit on HIV/AIDS, airport sources said. UN Secretary General Kofi Annan arrived in the Nigerian capital a little earlier for the two-day summit, on Aids, tuberculosis and other infectious diseases, involving nearly 50 African heads of state. Clinton was […]
SOUTH Africas main Freedom Day celebration in Pietersburg was off to a cheerful start on Friday despite cool and rainy weather. People packing the pavilion of the rugby stadium were unfazed by a slight drizzle as cultural performances got underway. The crowd will later in the day be addressed by Northern Province premier Ngoako Ramathlodi […]
FORTY members of the Algerian security forces were killed and 38 injured in a clash this week with armed Islamic extremists, Algerian newspapers reported on Saturday. The clash happened Thursday at Ras El-Ach, 70km south of Tebessa, which is 630km east of the capital Algiers, according to the Quotidien d’Oran and Le Matin. – AFP
FOREIGN shareholding in SA pulp and paper group Sappi has now surpassed the 60% mark, the company said on Thursday. This followed strong buying from US and other international institutions in recent weeks, it said. The group said 37% of its shares were now held by US shareholders and 23% by European and other foreign […]
THE South African rand retained its firm foothold on Wednesday morning floated by positive sentiment, dealers said. The rand was last quoted at R8.0820 to the U.S. dollar from a previous close of 8.0700. “Dollars have been long and dealers have been clearing their long positions, which has helped the rand firm quite a bit,” […]
AUTHORITIES at the University of Benin, in Nigeria’s southern Edo State, have expelled another 108 students for forging their credentials. The latest expulsions bring to 178 the total number of students sent away this month for forging their credentials. At least 1_000 students have been expelled from various academic institutions in Nigeria over the past […]
FORMER president Nelson Mandela and media company Naspers will launch two internet technology centres in the Karoo towns of Calitzdorp and Carnarvon on Thursday. Both towns will each receive an internet technology centre. Calitzdorp was identified by the Department of Health as one of the most underprivileged towns in South Africa. Each centre has been […]
THE Reverend Leon Sullivan, the civil rights crusader who wrote the Sullivan Principles, an international code of business conduct that helped end apartheid in South Africa, has died of leukemia. He was 78. Sullivan, a former Philadelphia minister described the principals as “a code that companies of America and the world came to follow to […]
TWENTY one African countries have developed action plans to contain the scourge of malaria plaguing the continent, WHO Director-General Gro Harlem Brundtland said on Wednesday to mark the first-ever Africa Malaria Day. Malaria kills at least one million people a year and it is a major barrier to development in the continent, Brundtland told a […]
UGANDAN police said in a statement on Wednesday they had destroyed 400 tonnes of marijuana, the largest haul deriving from a single seizure operation. The 600 000 plants, which were burned, were valued at 2.3m shillings ($1.1m). Eleven people were also arrested in the three-day operation carried out between April 18-20 in Busia District in […]
Delegates rejected the idea of a Khoisan people at a conference in Windhoek John Grobler San teachers and linguists from Namibia, Botswana and South Africa have agreed to produce a standard orthography for their language groups. At a meeting in Windhoek last week they devised a plan for the new system that will divide San […]
Cyril A Hromnk Crossfire Commenting on the closure of the Kung (Bushman) diorama in the South African Museum (“Unmaking the San”, April 6 to 12), Pippa Skotnes writes: “The challenge is not to get rid of the diorama, but to alter it … to find ways to displace and replace the stereotype it perpetuates.” She […]
Highlights from the Department of Finance briefing presented to Cabinet ministers in August 1999: l “The South African government is fully exposed to the depreciation of the rand against foreign currencies, which account for about 75% of the total purchase amount. There is no effective means of hedging the currency risk inherent in the procurements.” […]
John Stremlau a second look Twenty years after the first nuclear explosion Albert Einstein issued his famous lament about politics falling behind physics. “The unleashed power of the atom,” he warned, “has changed everything save our modes of thinking and we thus drift toward unparalleled catastrophes.” Africa’s contributions to the nuclear age were poignant but […]
Bruce Whitfield looks at some of the first quarter’s biggest disappointments The first quarter of this year saw a range of financial, industrial and technology shares take a pounding on the JSE Securities Exchange. There was not a single resources stock among the bottom feeders this time. The worst-performing share in the first quarter was […]
Leadership battles are emerging in the ruling party. Jaspreet Kindra reports Former African National Congress Youth League leader James Nkambule, who is in the witness protection programme, told the Mail & Guardian this week that former Mpumalanga premier Matthews Phosa was aspiring to stand for the position of the party president next year. Nkambule, who […]
Mail & Guardian reporters The Cabinet signed off South Africa’s R50-billion arms deal despite being warned of serious repercussions the buying splurge could have on the country’s economy. In August 1999, the Department of Finance stopped just short of advising the Cabinet not to proceed with the package on the scale proposed because of the […]
Shaun de Waal CD OFTHEWEEK Clint Mansell’s score for the film Requiem for a Dream (Nonesuch) contributed in no small measure to the devastating impact of that nerveshredding tale of addiction. It works very well, even separated from the movie, employing a mode somewhere between Philip Glass and Bernard Hermann, with some very original twists. […]
Thebe Mabanga LIVINGSTONE’S TRIBE: A JOURNEY FROM ZANZIBAR TO THE CAPE by Stephen Taylor (Flamingo) One of the many striking observations that Stephen Taylor makes in this book is about Africabased correspondents for the predominantly Western media. “As a tribe,” he says, “journalists in Africa dwell amidst the sweetest landscapes, live off the finest pasture […]
Melvyn Minnaar Drive over the famously precipitous Swartberg Pass and, instead of carrying on to the beautiful village of Prince Albert, take the R328 north,?back towards Klaarstroom. Old people call this Die Gang (The Passage), a?beautiful, fertile valley along the steep mountains. This is where some of the finest wine grapes may come from in […]
What would the South African tourist industry be selling today if it didn’t have the relics of apartheid to offer? Matthew Krouse Marketing brutality is good for tourism. The revenue a country can take from promoting understanding of its darkest hours can certainly rival what it can cream off its sex industry and its natural […]
Peter van der Merwe John Platter South African Wine Guide 2001 edited by Phillip van Zyl (Andrew McDowall) Wines and Vineyards of South Africa by Wendy Toerien (Struik) The Sunday Telegraph Good Wine Guide 2001 by Robert Joseph (Dorling Kindersley) Wine snobbery is a puzzling phenomenon, to say the least. Let’s face it, few can […]
A 29-year-old woman who allegedly shot her abusive husband, once a member of the SA Defence Force’s notorious Koevoet counter insurgency unit, will have to wait until June to find out whether a Namibian court believes she is guilty of murder, the Namibian Press Agency reported on Tuesday. Estelle Elmare Gray, of Henties Bay, is […]
Matthew Krouse review OFTHEWEEK As a prelude to Sweat on Somerset, upon entering the Barney Simon Theatre in Johannesburg one encounters two makebelieve hookers lounging about in the audience, ready to make small talk with the patrons. This is an obvious effort to authenticate the upfront experience of steamers when they first step into any […]
Andrew Muchineripi soccer If ever there was a tournament that is Bafana Bafana’s bte noire, it is the Confederation of Southern African Football Association (Cosafa) Cup. Not once has our national team reached the final of this tournament, let alone win it and the R500 000 or more that goes to the conquering country. As […]
Tracy McVeigh Body Language It could be something in the cocoa or too much titillation on Coronation Street: Britain’s pensioners are shedding their cardigans and getting down to it. But the men and women who began the sexual revolution as twentysomethings in the late 1950s are not only finding new passion and partners in their […]
Johannesburg architects Jeremy Rose and Phill Mashabane recently won the Robben Island architectural competition Yvette Gresl In postapartheid South Africa Robben Island has taken on a dual significance. It is a contradictory symbol of extreme political subjugation and, in the words of Ahmed Kathrada, the “triumph of the human spirit”. Nelson Mandela, as a symbol […]
Nawaal Deane In a desperate attempt to get rid of the worst outbreak of algae in 20 years, Hartebeespoort Dam residents have come up with an innovative solution: a floating bulldozer. In February a few residents ó tired of the stench and the complaints ó formed the Water Action Group in an attempt to clean […]