Glenda Daniels and Barry Streek The African National Congress and the government tied themselves up in knots this week, trying to reconcile ANC secretary general Kgalema Motlanthe’s call for a war against capitalism with the country’s investor-friendly macroeconomic policies. At a Workers’ Day rally, Motlanthe commended the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) for […]

Two top British poets are among those coming to Durban’s poetry festival Merle Colborne There was a time when poetry was thought of as something only people who spoke posh, wore tweed skirts or jackets with leather elbow patches and drank their tea from bone china cups could enjoy. Now aficionados include those who talk […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Bulawayo | Friday 1.30pm. PRESIDENT Thabo Mbeki and Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe greeted each other with bear hugs in Bulawayo on Friday ahead of the Zimbabwe International Trade Fair. The two leaders walked hand-in-hand along a red carpet and waved to a crowd of about 200 of Mugabe’s supporters before being whisked off […]

Andrew Muchineripi SOCCER It never ceases to amaze me how much hot air is exhaled by Premier Soccer League coaches on the issue of fixture congestion without their offering even one constructive suggestion as to how the problem can be solved. Paul Dolezar says Sundowns face a 13- month season and the reaction of this […]

Cameron Duodu LETTER FROM THE NORTH In 1992 I was in Abuja, Nigeria, to cover former president FW de Klerk’s first official visit to Nigeria. As I sat down to face De Klerk and his officials at the news conference, I wondered whether they fully realised the historic importance of the visit. Nigeria had played […]

M&G reporters The London and Frankfurt stock exchanges have agreed to merge, creating Europe’s largest stock market and a powerful regional counterweight to Wall Street, the London Stock Exchange announced this week. The London exchange and Germany’s Deutsche Boerse would each own 50% of the new entity, which is to be called iX, for International […]

Durban will once more play host to a wide range of literary luminaries when the fourth annual Poetry Africa Festival, hosted by the University of Natal’s Centre for the Creative Arts, begins on Monday May 8 at the Elizabeth Sneddon Theatre. It runs until Saturday May 13. There are also additional events outside the theatre […]

EMELIA SITHOLE, Harare | Friday 2.00pm. ZIMBABWE’s besieged white farmers said on Friday a peace deal struck with war veterans to end the occupation of farms is meaningless because they have stepped up their invasions and intimidation is on the increase. Commercial Farmers’ Union deputy director Jerry Grant said he is concerned that Chenjerai Hunzvi, […]

Internal union disputes caused the problems at VW’s Uitenhage branch in January Glenda Daniels One of the largest unions in South Africa says it has learned some serious lessons from the strike at the Uitenhage Volkswagen (VW) plant in January – and wants to ensure it can never happen again. National Union of Metalworkers of […]

Glenda Daniels BODY LANGUAGE I’m not a fan of coats of arms because to me they’re symbols of pride – for men at war. But I was curious about the new coat of arms, which took a long time coming. The motto in Khoisan, !KE E: /XARRA //KE – loosely translated to mean Unity in […]