Eddie Butler : Rugby For all its reputation of being the dearest, dearest institution never to have been added to the government’s sacred “listed events”, the Five Nations Championship has a decidedly murky history. There may not have been much that even the home unions committee could do about the world wars that interrupted the […]

Maria McCloy The management of national music chain Musica and the advertising agency Jupiter Drawing Room are surprised by the “extreme” reaction to a Valentine’s Day poster campaign that went up on Friday January 23 and was torn down by Monday January 26. Four naked couples in loving embraces, each accompanied by appropriate words from […]

Michael Nurok It is 3am on Sunday and “Dr Davis”, an intern at a Western Cape hospital, has not stopped working since 8am the previous day. He is trying to resuscitate a child who has lost so much blood from an open fracture he is unconscious. Save the overburdened nursing staff, there is no one […]

Steve Morris : Rugby The acid test for South Africa’s new regionalised Super 12 system does not come on Friday February 27, when the southern hemisphere’s provincial championship kicks off in Cape Town where the Western Stormers face Wellington at Newlands. Neither will it really come should one of the local composite teams make the […]

Success story Netscape posted a loss for the first time and axed 400 jobs last month, reports Mark Tran The trophies on display in the reception area of Netscape Communications testify to one of the most meteoric successes in Silicon Valley. Given by trade magazines, the awards cite Jim Clark and Marc Andreessen, who founded […]

Iden Wetherell Televised scenes of demonstrators being teargassed and robust editorials in the country’s leading daily have so angered Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe that he has ordered a radical shake-up of the state-owned media that will see his already tight grip reinforced. Traditionally a faithful ally of Zimbabwe’s entrenched political establishment, the government media have […]

morality Sexual scandal in politics has always been attended by hypocrisy, most frequently on the part of the media in their efforts to justify the public ventilation of private activities. When a British minister of defence, John Profumo, bedded a prostitute and was caught, the British press justified its prurient coverage of the scandal on […]

Philippa Garson Etienne Marais, a director in the Safety and Security Secretariat found guilty last week of sexually abusing two girls, will face a disciplinary hearing or be dismissed, unless he resigns first. Marais, chief director of liaison and communication, was found guilty of masturbating in front of two girls, aged seven and 12 at […]

Belinda Beresford Guardian of the rand and watchdog of inflation, the Reserve Bank probably has as much impact on every South African’s finances as anything the government does. But, unlike Nelson Mandela, the bank is not national property. Unlike most of its counterparts across the globe, South Africa’s central bank is a private company which […]

Belinda Beresford Investor or tourist, gift-giver or generous parent bailing out stranded offspring, how can you best get your money out of the country? The quickest way of taking money overseas is to use your credit or debit card, although this can be expensive. Internationally, credit-card transactions are operated in dollars. A withdrawal in yen […]