Bill Elliott GOLF The blazered battalions of the Royal and Ancient Golf Club (R&A) of St Andrews will be defrocked for this year’s Open in July. In a remarkably forward-thinking move for the conservative R&A, the famous blazers will be dispensed with for on- course officials and replaced by … windcheaters. For the first Open […]
ZIMBABWE’s foreign payment arrears have climbed to at least $350-million dollars, raising the prospect of a default on its external debt and further fuel shortages, the Financial Times reported on Wednesday. It said the deficit relates to payments for goods already dispatched to Zimbabwe and for orders not yet sent. Citing bankers it added that […]
Steven Friedman WORM’S EYE VIEW We can learn from events across our borders: but do we? An aspect of Zimbabwe’s trauma which has received less notice than it should is what it tells us about our own hang-ups. If citizens’ responses in radio phone- ins or letters to the press are a guide, that of […]
Donna Block President Robert Mugabe’s government is now targeting top Zimbabwean businesspeople who are independent of the ruling Zanu-PF party as land invasions and violence against farmers and opposition supporters continue. The head of Zimbabwe’s third-largest company, Strive Masiyiwa, is now pondering his future surrounded by bodyguards in London after being warned by sympathetic security […]
Mary Dover South African hotel giant Southern Sun has secured a site for a new hotel in Tanzania as part of the group’s aggressive expansion into Africa. Southern Sun recently purchased the Lusaka Holiday Inn from the owners of the property, Anglo American, and a new hotel is under construction in Maputo, Mozambique. The 159-room […]
Eight years ago a group of businesspeople hired a whale crier and forever changed the state of tourism in Hermanus Andrew McUtchen When Pieter Claasen first lifted a horn- shaped strand of kelp from the sand, and sounded a resonant bass note to the cliffs of Grotto beach, his audience could hardly have been more […]
A legal battle over a genetically modified rodent is putting the lucrative mutant mouse industry under the microscope James Meek In October a jury in San Francisco will make a decision in one of the new millennium’s most bizarre and complex court cases. Teams of elite lawyers will have spent weeks studying and arguing over […]
ALAN FINLAY & Reuters, Johannesburg | Friday 4.00pm. THE rand was rocked to a fresh record low of R7,01 against the dollar on Friday, in the wake of a strengthening dollar and growing fears of the potential impact on South Africa of political unrest in Zimbabwe. However by late afternoon it had recovered marginally and […]
Thebe Mabanga IN YOUR EAR The Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA) is an interesting figure in South African broadcasting. It was established in 1993 to regulate the broadcasting industry and has made considerable, but sometimes jittery, strides in fulfilling its duties. One of its successes is the deregulation of the airwaves, with radio now reaching an […]
Marianne Merten A debt-collecting company, International Debt Control (IDC), chaired by former minister of finance Barend Du Plessis, has been expelled from the industry control body after being found guilty of unconscionable behaviour, acting dishonestly and failing to account for collected money. It is the second time IDC has been censured by the Association of […]