Lynley Donnelly
Lynley is a senior business reporter at the Mail & Guardian. But she has covered everything from social justice to general news to parliament - with the occasional segue into fashion and arts. She keeps coming to work because she loves stories, especially the kind that help people make sense of their world.
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/ 14 September 2007

Show of hands – or maybe of teeth

Zimbabwe’s ruling Zanu-PF party has called a surprise special congress for December, setting the stage for a showdown between President Robert Mugabe and rivals within his party, who are plotting to oust him. A conference had been scheduled, but a meeting of Mugabe’s politburo last week decided that an extraordinary congress should be called instead.

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/ 4 September 2007

Sol Plaatje gets a facelift

Sol Plaatje 2007: Relocated Mandelaville residents still live in shacks clinging to a hillside facing the Durban Roodepoort Deep mine dump — an aged, yellowing scar on the landscape. There is no electricity here, no direct access to clean water and no municipal services such as rubbish collection. But the view from Sol Plaatje is finally looking up.

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/ 31 August 2007

Inflation: the mealie factor

A new economic scourge is stalking markets internationally. It has helped force up interest rates in South Africa already and is likely to bring more rate increases. The scourge is run­away mealie prices. Store-bought mealie-meal in metropolitan areas is up 22% since last year, according to the National Agriculture Marketing Council.

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/ 8 August 2007

Going the extra mile

What do you do when you have a municipality that owes R56-million on its water bill and a company threatening to cut off water to 500 000 people? If you are Matjhabeng executive mayor Mathabo Leeto, you crack your whip, get it paid and avoid political embarrassment and disaster for your constituents.

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/ 3 August 2007

The real winners of the Charity Cup

It’s quiet at the Mini Care Centre for Abused Children, save for a few older kids knocking around in the backyard. Besides those taking time out from studying for exams, all the residents are at school. The children here and others like them at the Hillbrow-Berea Home of Hope will probably be indifferent to a football tournament happening in Mmabatho on Saturday.

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/ 11 July 2007

Creating a factory of content

A few years ago if you had seen Leon Schuster’s Mr Bones you would have watched one of the highest grossing and, dare it be said, best films South Africa had to offer. Thankfully the same can’t be said of our industry’s current output with the advent of films such as Bunny Chow and Tsotsi.