Stefaans Brmmer As South Africa’s lilliputian opposition parties scramble to block the African National Congress juggernaut, one of the country’s most influential think-tanks believes the ANC may still secure a two- thirds majority in next year’s election. The Centre for Policy Studies has challenged predictions that the ruling party will get below 50% of the […]
Mail & Guardian reporter South Africa’s financial markets took a drubbing this week as the rand fell to an all-time low and the Reserve Bank raised its key lending rate by more than two percentage points to 18%. The rand dropped to R5,16 against the dollar on Monday after rumours in London and New York […]
Charl Blignaut Shopping and Fucking, a controversial new theatre production, has, against all odds, ushered in a new era for Johannesburg’s Market Theatre – in the process taking its young cast into uncharted territory. The play, which contains some of the most explicit scenes ever seen on a local stage, was always going to be […]
ready for the spectacle of the World Cup Bongani Siqoko Soccer World Cup The whole universe will come to a standstill when reigning world champions Brazil take on Scotland in the opening game of the World Cup 98 in France at Saint Denis on June 10. Unlike the 1994 World Cup, which was a two-nation […]
Changes in the unit trust industry could work to your advantage, writes Charlene Smith There is no doubt that the unit trust industry is profitable, for investors and trust-fund managers, but what new developments should the investor be sensitive too? Overall, unit trusts are performing better than the Johannesburg Stock Exchange’s (JSE) all share index, […]
Craig Bishop The launch of the National Environment Management Bill this week is expected to give communities a “lot more political muscle in dealing with companies”, says Chris Albertyn, national co-ordinator of the Environmental Justice Networking Forum. “The new Bill recognises that the government has very little capacity to deal with companies breaking environmental laws. […]
Chris Gordon The in-your-face style of marketing practised in downtown Luanda, Angola, is a normal hazard of life on the dishevelled and risky streets of the capital. Young men and children, mainly refugees from the provinces, sell anything from chewing gum to clothes, pushing it through car windows, following potential customers down the street, disbelieving […]
Douglas Rushkoff: ONLINE Of all the cool and creepy pieces of vapourware to have emerged since the Web went mainstream, the coolest and creepiest have got to be intelligent agents. And, according to the press releases jamming my e-mail server, they’re here: autonomous pieces of programming trained to race around cyberspace doing our (largely consumerist) […]
Andrew Worsdale Movies of the week I don’t have any friends I still know from my schooldays. It’s probably just as well. Most of them weren’t really friends because I was such a wise-ass. But two films opening this week give unique insight into the world of children and growing up. Both are rites- of-passage […]
Anna Borzello in Kampala The 42 Sudanese prisoners sat at the edge of Entebbe airport. Despite spending more than a year in military prison, they looked in reasonable health – with the exception of a man who was said to have gone mad in captivity. A Sudanese government delegation arrived by jet from Khartoum and […]