INTERNATIONAL credit rating agency, Moody’s Investor Services, has reconfirmed South Africa’s investment grade status and upgraded the outlook for the rating from negative to stable, the finance department announced on Thursday. The department said that Moody’s had indicated it is concerned about the rate of economic growth and the low level of employment creation but […]
Kasia Boddy BIRDS OF AMERICA by Lorrie Moore (Faber &Faber) Like the birds they observe living “punishing, unblessed lives, winging it north, south, here, there”, Lorrie Moore’s characters are constantly searching “for a place of rest”. In one story a mother and daughter tour Ireland, searching for both “the past of America” and their lost […]
THE South African Broadcasting Corporation was served a second subpoena on Thursday in an attempt to force it to hand over to investigators video footage of the lynching in August 1996 of Hard Living gang co-leader Rashaad Staggie. Staggie was shot and burned to death by a vigilante mob in Cape Town in the first […]
Linda Chisholm:A SECOND LOOK If the matric exam did not exist, South Africans would have to invent it. As one of our major social institutions, the matric exam results each year signal whether we are succeeding or failing as a nation. This year’s results were no different. Whether they are a major or a minor […]
Thokozani Mtshali Arrive Alive’s billboard campaign to reduce deaths on South Africa’s roads this holiday season has been greeted with scepticism by many motorists. The campaign was launched 14 months ago in conjunction with traffic departments, the Ministry of Transport and the South African Police Service (SAPS) in a bid to reduce road fatalities. But […]
Stephen Gray THE JOURNAL OF GUSTAF DE VYLDER (Van Riebeeck Society) The latest (1998) volume in the Second Series of the Van Riebeeck Society’s noble list of publications has, in fact, been available to specialists from the National Archives of Namibia since 1992. But now, for a wider general readership, here is The Journal of […]
Characteristics that distinguish us from apes may have been forced on our ancestors by the presence of water, writes Ruben Mowszowski If the proponents of a revolutionary theory of human origins are correct, our ancestors abandoned the trees not for the savannah, but for the water – and humans share more physical traits with dolphins […]
Mail & Guardian reporter The Mail & Guardian and the Freedom of Expression Institute have won a landmark legal battle in the Cape High Court which could see changes made to the Defence Act, particularly the way the army conducts its courts martial. “The present case is a perfect example of why the provisions [of […]
Ferial Haffajee The exhibition is not linear in any way, but is instead divided into 12 positions. The major positions include: Fortification: From the first one built at the Cape in 1652, architecture in South Africa has been characterised by a series of forts. Later, forts in the Eastern Cape were constructed to stake the […]
FORMER Lesotho prime minister Ntsu Mokhehle died on Wednesday night at a hospital in Bloemfontein, Lesotho government officials confirmed on Thursday. The 80-year-old former head of state fell ill during celebrations to mark his birthday on December 26 and was rushed to hospital in Bloemfontein, where he remained until he died. Mokhehle was treated for […]