Donna Block SHAREWORLD I remember my first year at University and my first class, Finance 101. The professor, a wizened old curmudgeon, told us that if we learned nothing else in his class, rule one about finance was that the stock market was a crap-shoot. “You place your bets and you take your chances.” He […]

THE SA Revenue Service plans to recruit about 100 additional full-timeauditors and about 30 forensic auditors in the coming months in order to deliver on its undertaking to collect R210,4billion in taxes in 2000-2001. Business Day reports that this would be 7,2% higher than this year’s achievement. It reports that SARS commissioner Pravin Gordhan said […]

Budget 2000 has something for everyone: Tax cuts for the hard-working populace, incentives for job creation, a boost for our credit rating – and fiscal discipline for state departments Belinda Beresford Trevor Manuel walked to his budget briefing with a huge smile on his face, secure in the knowledge that he was about to become […]

Jean Spear It seems trendy to criticise backpackers and their guidebooks these days. With the proliferation of mostly generic guides on the market that cater for the backpacker crowd and an established backpacker circuit, travelling is no longer reserved for the elite. But is it such a bad thing? Sure, it is amusing that guidebooks […]

THE Transvaal Agricultural Union has warned that many of the estimated 4000 farm schools in South Africa may be forced to close down because of government negligence. TAU Mpumalanga spokesman, Theo Wassenaar, said many farm schools lack infrastructure like electricity and sewage systems and the department also fails to maintain them. “Farmers and government differ […]

State More than half-a-million rand has failed to find its way to the country’s controlling body of professional golf Michael Vlismas GOLF The Southern Africa Tour instituted court action against the Free State’s provincial government this week in an attempt to recover more than half-a- million rand it believes it is owed. Somewhere between Cape […]

Michael Finch ATHLETICS During the 1999 season, there were many certainties in South African athletics – South Africa’s 400m hurdling superstar Llewellyn Herbert would always win on home soil, Wendy Hartman was untouchable in the sprints, and the men’s 400m was a toss-up between Arnaud Malherbe or Jopie van Oudtshoorn. Not surprisingly, the lure of […]

Movies via the Net could do more than hit your local video hire shop Jack Schofield Cliff Stanford has made one fortune by bringing the Internet to the mass market, through Demon Internet, and now he’d like to make another by using the Net to deliver movies. This week, Britain’s Redbus Film Group, of which […]

Marianne Merten The New National Party aborted its disciplinary action against its outspoken senior Western Cape member Peter Marais this week after his legal team indicated it would cross-examine the party’s national and Western Cape leaders at the hearing. Marais was axed as Western Cape welfare and poverty relief MEC on Valentine’s Day, apparently for […]

EGYPTIAN President Hosni Mubarak welcomed Pope John Paul II to Egypt on Thursday with a call for a joint battle against fanaticism and hatred in order to fulfill the hopes of the new millennium. “We should oppose all forms of discrimination, injustice and double standards if we are to establish a new viable world order,” […]