AMANDA Coetzer beat defending champion and top-seeded Lindsay Davenport of the United States 2-6 6-4 6-3 on Friday in the Toray Pan Pacific Open in Tokyo. The upset sees the seventh seeded South African advancing to the semi-finals — along with Australian Open champion Martina Hingis, who defeated Steffi Graf of Germany 3-6 6-2 6-4. […]

Chiara Carter A Cape Town bus company employee is asking the Labour Court to find that he has been paid less than a white colleague because he is black – a case which, if successful, is likely to set a precedent for challenging discrimination in the workplace. Michael Louw, a buyer for Golden Arrow Bus […]

Karlin Lillington If you have a task to do, find someone to share the work and you get the job done in half the time. That’s the idea behind Distributed.net, a group that co- ordinates spare computer processor power from across the Internet to solve huge mathematical tasks which otherwise would take days, weeks, and […]

THE De Beers black empowerment deal involving the high-grade Marsfontein mine in the Northern Province is undervalued by half, it was reported on Friday. It was announced last Friday that a 24% share of the mine will soon be held by black companies. De Beers is selling 49% of its 60% in Marsfontein for R200-million […]

Patrick Smith Former South African president FW de Klerk presided over a Cabinet meeting in March 1993 that gave Cape businessman Vito Palazzolo a residence permit, although at the time he was the subject of an Italian extradition warrant. The respected magazine Africa Confidential will report this week that in September 1993, De Klerk’s government […]

FERIAL HAFFAJEE TAKING STOCK Lazarus Madiseng proffered the fruit of democracy. A prickly pear, it is sweet and juicy. The assignment: to find out about the life of ordinary South Africans since 1994, when change came to this land. They don’t come a lot more ordinary than Madiseng – a kindly grandfather who after a […]

not PC Andrew Worsdale `I’m real pessimistic about the local film industry … and as for advertising and the commercials industry – that’s really siff, all these cocknoses with B Com degrees who think they can make movies, when all they want is to make money.” So says Keren Labuschagne, outspoken perhaps, but tongue firmly […]

THE Pretoria Regional Court refused bail to Schalk Willem Krugel (34) on Friday. Krugel is charged with three counts of conspiracy to murder and two of theft of cash. The case is related to the disappearance in 1996 of Stephanus Pelser (35) and Andrew Sweetnam (31) as well as Namibian lawyer Jan Gysbert Malan (39). […]

Y2K is getting steadily closer. Donna Block investigated how it may affect your money Three-hundred-and-thirty days and counting. The millennium bug is upon us and no doubt you’ve heard the horror stories that could begin at the stroke of midnight on December 31 1999. Unable to cope with the year 2000, computer programs go crazy […]

Review of the week:Sue Williamson Fifteen years ago, travelling through Zambia, I studied the historical photographs on display in the town museum of Livingstone. Black bearers carried pith-helmeted white women in hammocks slung on long poles. Men with guns posed next to kills, a large bevy of black support staff lined up in the background. […]