The Basic Conditions of Employment Act applies to domestic workers too, writes Belinda Beresford Labour relations, like charity, begin at home. But unlike charitable acts, proper labour relations towards your maid, gardener, chauffeur or childminder are not voluntary. Before crime and emigration became the main topics of conversation among the chattering classes, complaining about domestic […]

Patrick Bond Share World `It is interesting that at times like this Mr [John Maynard] Keynes is again resurrected,” remarked South African Minister of Finance Trevor Manuel at the meeting with his Commonwealth counterparts in Ottawa at the end of last month. “There is a recognition that the standard prescription for macroeconomic stability and growth […]

Andy Capostagno Cricket It was the Somerset and England all- rounder Len Braund who refused a second benefit on the grounds that he had lost money on the first. And Bertie Buse, another Somerset man who coached for many years at King Edwards in Johannesburg, chose a three-day game at Bath for his benefit. Neglecting […]

Andrew Worsdale Movies of the week Film release patterns are very strange. One week there’s a host of movies and film festivals opening, and the next there’s virtually zip to write about. This week sees only four new movies being released, in comparison to last week’s seven along with the feast of films featured in […]

Steve Gordon South African musicians at home and abroad will be saddened to learn of the death last week of guitarist Russell Herman, who died in London, where he had been living since the early 1980s. Born in Cape Town in 1953, Herman grew up in District Six, and was an integral part of the […]

spring fever Friday night Genevieve Cutts Remember the days when it was a mission to find something to do on a weekend in Johannesburg? Well, those days are over. My Fridays now begin (please note I say begin) vegged out on my couch in front of the TV as I am e-ntertained and e-nthralled by […]

Stephen Moss Jos Saramago has finally received his due from the Swedish Academy. Awarded the 1998 Nobel Prize for Literature, he is the first writer in Portuguese to win the world’s most prestigious literary award. “I am very happy for myself,” he told a cheering crowd at the Frankfurt Book Fair. “But I am also […]

Giles Foden THE CATASTROPHIST by Ronan Bennett (Headline Review) Those who suspected Ronan Bennett of being a novelist who lets his political enthusiasms – Irish republicanism, social justice – rein in the impulse towards a more elastic, heartfelt fiction will not have their suspicions confirmed by his new novel. Set in Congo before and after […]

Hanekom The chief land claims commissioner says he is being made `a sacrificial beast’ as his remarks in Parliament embarrassed his minister, writes Wally Mbhele Chief land claims commissioner Joe Seremane broke his silence this week over tensions that have gripped the Commission on the Restitution of Land Rights, saying that Minister of Agriculture and […]

Tim Radford It is lunchtime in Europe or breakfast in New England and you are probably in middle life, maybe a great deal older. You are also a chemist, a physicist or a researcher who did something unequivocally important in medicine and physiology. Or you could be an economist, a politician or perhaps a writer, […]