Checking your credit record regularly can save you money. Belinda Beresford explains how They know your name and where to find you. They know where you shop, how much you’ve spent and how high your cellphone bill is. They are the credit bureaux: collectors and vendors of information, about you, me, the person next door […]

CDs of the week: Sam Taylor Bruce Springsteen is the second-most bootlegged artist in rock, after Bob Dylan, and Tracks (Columbia), a four- CD, 66-track compilation of unreleased material has been long anticipated. Inevitably, it is not wholly satisfying. There are too many unremarkable outtakes from his weakest albums, Born in the USA and Human […]

Shaw contract Mungo Soggot The Serious Economic Offences branch of the national prosecuting authority is to interview directors of the Central Energy Fund (CEF) about the award of a R3-million contract to a company run by Liberian politician Emanuel Shaw II. The head of the Investigating Directorate (Serious Economic Offences), Jan Swanepoel, confirmed his office […]

of the past Sergeant at the Bar The past year may well prove to be a watershed in the history of the post- apartheid judiciary. In 1998, the Judicial Service Commission made a few appointments which were not only controversial, but perhaps precedent setting. As a result, Judge Bernard Ngoepe became the judge president of […]

ago Jill Treanor and Phillip Inman Punters who invested 100 on the London stock market at the end of World War Iwould have been able to buy their dream millionaire mansion by the end of last year. The gamble on stocks would have catapulted the punter into the exclusive six-figure club much faster than those […]

probe Mungo Soggot The Heath commission is in possession of an affidavit signed by a person who claims to have been present when a Gauteng MEC and other top officials received bribes of at least R1-million related to the award of a casino licence. Sources in the Gauteng legislature and sources close to the commission […]

Willie Hofmeyr, African National Congress MP, responds on this page to our January 15 to 21 editorial concerning the country’s lamentable record on crime. His point is that the government is committed to deterring and imprisoning criminals – an assurance he and many of his colleagues no doubt believe has been borne out by the […]

ceasefire bid Howard Barrell South African diplomacy lay behind the potential breakthrough achieved this week in attempts to end the war in the Democratic Republic of Congo when five neighbouring countries involved in the fighting committed themselves to signing a ceasefire agreement. Ironically, however, South Africa was sidelined from the summit in the Namibian capital, […]

Mark James DOG HEART by Breyten Breytenbach (Human & Rousseau) If there is one point where politics, art and religion intersect in the current cultural life of this country, it is in the rage for confession. With differing degrees of enthusiasm, the whole country is at it, mesmerised by it, implicated in it. After the […]

backside Howard Barrell: OVER A BARREL An assumption commonly made in our politics is that good intentions must have good results. Another is that if you or I question the way someone goes about trying to achieve a result, this means we believe he or she has lousy intentions. Neither follows. The road to hell […]