PRESIDENT Thabo Mbeki flew to Europe on Thursday for meetings in Germany and Denmark with world leaders where he is expected to push Africa’s development agenda. Mbeki will carry with him the message that he delivered to the United Kingdom and United States during visits there this month — that Africa needs international assistance to […]
Jon Henderson TENNIS Whether to trash or tank? Marat Safin’s progress in the French Open – and there are many who believe the 20-year-old Russian can go all the way to clay-court tennis’s premier title this year – will depend on which of these diametrically opposed options he takes over the next week. Safin in […]
Traditional financial services are no longer confined solely to the ‘big fish’ or the conventional banking sector Alan Finlay With the hostile bid by Nedcor to acquire banking rival Stanbic dominating the headlines a few months ago, one might be forgiven for thinking that the health of the sector is entirely dependent on what the […]
Belinda Beresford Punching way above its weight, the agricultural sector in South Africa manages to have a disproportionate effect on the country’s growth figures. If it hadn’t been for the near 18% fall in agriculture’s contribution, the gross domestic figures for the first quarter of this year would have been a reasonable 1,9%, instead of […]
Nicky Blumenfeld In attempting to secure a record-company deal, an increasing number of artists in South Africa invest their own time and money, in the hope that their demo will be heard and their efforts acknowledged. Just more than a year ago as a radio presenter I received one of these self- made initiatives, put […]
Robert Kirby CHANNELVISION It would seem that with the arrival in its boardrooms of the Rembrandt group, e.tv has had a welcome injection of hard cash. It would seem also that, like the unexpected benefice of a wealthy relative’s will, all the delicious lolly is being spent like there’s no tomorrow. The first signs of […]
Andy Capostagno RUGBY It is now time to acknowledge that all of us have been guilty of damning the Super 12 champions of the past three years with faint praise. The Crusaders entered all three finals as rank outsiders and then beat the Blues (20-13), the Highlanders (24-19) and now the Brumbies (20-19). By which […]
ETHIOPIA and Eritrea mulled peace proposals before resuming indirect talks in Algiers on Friday, but Addis Ababa reported renewed fighting a day after it declared their two-year-old border war over. The Ethiopian government accused Eritrea of attacking its positions on the eastern front on Thursday, saying Eritrean shellfire has killed two civilians and wounded eight. […]
LEFT FIELD Ebrahim Harvey Long last have I read an article so contradictory and dishonest as that by Dale McKinley last week in Crossfire, “The cheerleaders of capitalism”. He was until recently a political economist of the South African Communist Party, which is, together with the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu), in an […]
Barry Streek The government has released details of its R374-million Community Based Public Works Programme (CBPWP) for the current financial year, including a R50-million programme to involve unemployed young people in making government buildings accessible to disabled people. It has also allocated R6-million for repairs to roads and bridges damaged by the floods earlier this […]