Marion Edmunds Two former Western Cape housing officials are skimming hefty profits off the provincial low-cost housing programme in exchange for processing subsidy information for the state. The Centre for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) has appointed RR, a Cape- Town based consultancy run by two former senior departmental officials, to help manage electronic subsidy […]

David Shapshak Push technology hasn’t had the kind of reception in South Africa that it deserves. An innovative means of disseminating information by “pushing” information to people’s computer desktops has great potential for the advertising world. With this in mind Kagiso Media has updated South Africa’s first push channel, Newzdesk, and are using it to […]

Andy Duffy Two signposts on the road to Muizenberg in Cape Town look hopelessly out of place. The first is a typical developer’s billboard – an eye-catching affair, beaming optimism about an exciting new development called Westlake. The second, metres away, is a far smaller, typical council sign, advising in three languages that no squatting […]

Robert Kirby LOOSE CANNON If, like so many of us, you are a wide-eyed apprentice democrat, you will have been following the fascinating television edutainment series, presently being mounted “collectively” by the Department of Labour, the SABC and Wits University’s Centre for Applied Legal Studies – or Cals. The series is called Buang: Let’s Talk. […]

Fiona Macleod The next time you raise your glass to Bacchus, ponder this: you may be poisoning yourself with the remains of chameleons which get mulched in the wine-making process. The organisers of a campaign to save chameleons in the Western Cape say they are being decimated by mechanical harvesters which have been imported from […]

Stefaans Brmmer Irish funding agency representative Chris McInerney this week “returned from the dead” to say he stands by allegations of maladministration he made eight years ago against Gauteng Premier Mathole Motshekga. Motshekga’s past as director of a non- governmental organisation, the National Institute for Public Interest Law and Research (Nipilar), is among matters under […]

Brett Davidson Another newcomer on the South African media scene is Hal Interactive, an online electronic media buying system. It’s a one-stop shop where media organisations can promote themselves and sell advertising slots, while media planners and buyers can check schedules and availability and buy space. Hal provides information on all major radio stations and […]

Multinationals will be able to take governments to court under a new agreement to be finalised this week. David Rowan asks what has happened to democracy You may not have heard of a new international accord called the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI). There’s no reason why you should have: the MAI has been debated […]

Sechaba ka’Nkosi Gauteng MEC for Safety and Security Jessie Duarte, whose political career hangs in the balance, personally handed an allegedly fraudulent document to the Mail & Guardian last week in an attempt to ward off a series of damaging allegations levelled against her. The commission of inquiry investigating the charges heard this week that […]

Belinda Beresford Too broke to pay full price for that ticket to Cape Town or around the world? Quailing at the thought of standby again? Why not try to catch your flight using a ticket auction on the Internet? Ticket auctions allow you to offer a price for a ticket, usually subject to a minimum […]