Thebe Mabanga in your ear So Metrofm is reported to have 5,6-million listeners, making it the second-largest station in the country after Ukhozi fm (Radio Zulu), which has 6,7-million listeners. If you are a Metro listener, you are now probably drowning in a hype-induced frenzy. For that is all it is really. Here’s why. In […]

RETAIL sales jumped more strongly than expected in June, reversing a fall in May and helping to boost the second quarter increase, official data showed. Seasonally adjusted retail sales climbed by 2.6% in June from the previous month, producing a gain of 6.6% from the same month the previous year. It was the biggest monthly […]

Marianne Merten On Wednesday this week, 19 days after the first dead girl was discovered, Kuils-river police started plotting on a map where the missing and the deceased disappeared. Four young girls have been found dead in the Kuilsriver area, several others have vanished and residents fear a child serial killer is at large. The […]

TANZANIA has extended a 20-month-old waiver on maize import duty to December to encourage imports of the staple crop to meet a food shortage due to drought. ”We have extended the exemption on duty on maize to encourage the business community to import maize,” said Gray Mgonja, deputy permanent secretary in the Ministry of Finance. […]

Catch a bus to the city centre for the cheapest show in town, writes Merle Colborne There was a cow on one once. It stood in the aisle and shat. No extra charge. In the bus business when you can gross R4 500 for ferrying the main course and 75 wedding guests from Umtata to […]

Lynda Gilfillan A new, slimmed-down tabloid rose from the dusty streets of a Karoo dorp and the ashes of the fallen media empire last week when the offices of the Advertiser en Karoonuus- News opened in Graaff-Reinet. Thirteen rural newspapers, which had been under the dynastic control of the Knott- Craig family for 40 years, […]

Mercedes Sayagues I pour a triple Scotch for Marcelina and one for me. We sit by the fireplace at her home on a cold winter evening. We are waiting for a phone call. My friend’s legs and arms have been failing for the past two weeks. She staggers, trembles and falls. We are waiting for […]

FUGITIVE German billionaire Jurgen Harksen has finally won a legal battle to avoid being extradited to his home country to face more than 300 charges of fraud and tax evasion. The Cape High Court ruled that there was insufficient evidence to extradite him to Germany, Harksen’s lawyer Paul Katzeff said. “In seven years I have […]

PRESIDENT Thabo Mbeki has lost a considerable quantity of his 20-year-old KWV brandy after a 27-year-old man apparently broke into Genadendal, Mbeki’s Cape residence, and tucked into alcohol and food. Police said that it appeared that the thief, who has been taken into custody, broke into Genadendal between 1 and 4 September. Mbeki, who is […]

11 000 awaiting-trial prisoners charged with petty crimes and who cannot afford bail will be released from South Africa’s overcrowded prisons, the Correctional Services Department has announced. An official said the move was aimed at alleviating the cramped conditions in the country’s 236 prisons which hold 172 000 convicted felons, and 65 000 people awaiting […]