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, […]
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 […]
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
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,” […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
I’d love to be proven wrong in my belief that Phumelela’s revamped superfecta bet will be every bit as neglected as the original. Trying to select the first six runners past the post, besides being tedious, is also dangerous, especially with the betting unit raised from 10c to R1 with a minimum 10% fractional bet […]
The Department of Finance believes the rand could sink as low as R26 to the United States dollar by 2018, after dropping to about R14,9 to the dollar by 2010. The department’s affordability study of the arms deal provides a rare insight into an official line on the future of the currency. The study, drafted […]
Olympic Group was the final yacht to sail into Cape Town to complete the fifth leg of the BTGlobal Challenge Marianne Merten ‘If you let the position ruin it you are actually losing the plot. We are learning about ourselves, working together, communicating,” says Olympic Group skipper Manley Hopkinson about participating in the BT Global […]
Nawaal Deane It has been almost 10 years since the Office for Serious Economic Offences (OSEO) began investigating allegations that attorney Ntehdi Bogoshi defrauded clients who were making claims against the Multilateral Motor Vehicle Fund. He has yet to be charged. The reason for this decade-long delay, according to the Directorate of Public Prosecutions, is […]
PAUL KIRK, Durban | Thursday HUNDREDS of dud armoured vehicles bought from a major British arms supplier are being scrapped by the South African Police Service. The vehicles, called Scouts, are being taken out of service as they are not considered safe, economical, cost-effective or suitable for the purposes for which they were designed. Instead […]
Matthew Krouse Agfa Theatre on the Square, Sandton Square. Neil McCarthy returns to stage writing with The Great Outdoors, a tense but tender psychodrama starring Isidingo’s Jamie Bartlett. Tickets at Computicket (www.computicket.com) or Tel: 883 8606. Barney Simon Theatre, Market Theatre complex, Newtown Cultural Precinct. Sweat on Somerset is a 70minute docuperformance about real life […]
David Beresford Another Country This space has had to be used again this week to accommodate the heated debate over the merits, or otherwise of Another Country, the column that usually fills it. Regretfully, after receiving a letter from David Beresford’s representatives, we are compelled to regard the subject as having now been fully ventilated […]
This time we ask this question in the knowledge that it is on the lips of many South Africans, many of them dedicated members of the ANC, SACP and the trade unions … Whether in his dealings with the Aids crisis surely the greatest threat ever to the country his timidity over Zimbabwe, or his […]
Barry Streek Many prominent Cape Town companies still own dismal hostels in the city’s townships and are hindering the redevelopment plans of the city council. Thousands of people are cramped into the decrepit and unhygienic buildings described as “appalling” by a development organisation helping to upgrade them. In the apartheid era the government actively encouraged […]
Alex Sudheim Bat Hall, Bat Centre, Durban harbour. St Raphael’s Special School, a primary school for the physically disabled, presents nine stage performances of the smash hit musical Sarafina! The public is invited to attend the openingnight performance at 8pm on Friday May 4, whereafter dedicated schools’ performances will take place from May 7 to […]
Directors face the ultimate challenge as corporate raider Active Value moves in for the kill Alec Hogg Shareholders of Primedia are being asked to vote on five key proposals at a special general meeting called for early May. This is the climax to a year-long war of attrition and could result in wholesale changes of […]
Yvette Gresl On June 16 1976 groups of Soweto schoolchildren took to the streets to protest against Bantu education and Afrikaans as a medium of instruction. Police, sent to the township to suppress the uprising, opened fire. The shooting of protestor Hector Petersen was poignantly captured in one of South Africa’s most publicised press photographs, […]
Marianne Merten In December 1986 Benjamin Olifant was on his way to visit his mother when Klerksdorp police arrested him for “causing unrest”. He was shot dead in a police cell. Elsie Olifant received interim reparations of R2000. More than 30 months after the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) recommended various forms of reparations for […]
Michelle Matthews Baxter Theatre Centre. From Wednesday May 2, see Evita Bezuidenhout’s new show, Symbols of Sex and Stage, in which she takes on unsafe sex and careless politics. Book at Computicket (www.computicket.com). Cape Comedy Collective. These laughmongers have added a new gig to their circuit. On Mondays three comedians will perform at 1st Base […]
These vehicles are not more than four years old, but some have rusted so badly that the doors have fallen off Paul Kirk Hundreds of armoured vehicles bought from a major British arms supplier are being scrapped by the South African Police Service. The vehicles, called Scouts, are being taken out of service as they […]
After the drama of the Test series, the Proteas go on a whistle-stop one-day tour of the islands Peter Robinson With the highbrow stuff out of the way now, South Africa and the West Indies go downmarket for the next two-and-a-half weeks in a seven-match one-day international series that starts in Jamaica on Saturday before […]
Alec Hogg Boardroom talk AME is set for better days. The JSE-listed penny stock owns 15% of the new undisputed World Heavyweight Boxing Champion and the right to promote his first title defence. A $250 000 punt on American heavyweight boxer Hasim Rahman turned to gold early on Sunday for African Media Entertainment (AME). In […]
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 […]