FRIDAY, 6.00PM: THE bullion price on Friday rose to above $290 an ounce as United States hedge funds covered themselves ahead of a US long weekend, which pushed the Johannesburg Stock Exchange gold index up 7%, carrying with it the rand and the JSE’s all share index. At day’s end the financial index had risen […]

Madeleine Roux: Moveable feast James Bond may be as as old as bri-nylon, but he is still the stuff of fantasy. So say the latest press releases about this old chauv and his three squeezes, who are appearing in yet another Bond movie, Tomorrow Never Dies. Suspecting an end to our long suspension of disbelief […]

Duncan McKay The discovery of 13 vials containing human growth hormone in the luggage of a Chinese swimmer as she passed through Perth customs on her way to the World Swimming Championships is another indication of extensive drug abuse in China. The Chinese have been accused of taking drugs since their women won 13 out […]

Hard Livings, but the living is easy Alex Duval Smith Hard Livings gang leader Rashied Staggie’s favoured hood-wear of the moment is a bright orange cap that he wears slightly set back on the head to reveal the green- coloured underside of its visor. This, reflected in the gold-rimmed mirror sunglasses which are perpetually perched […]

Steve Morris : Rugby We are barely a month away from the start of another round of Super 12 and a season which surely spells the end of the age of innocence for this country in a game which has mirrored the South African condition of blending the cutting edge of excellence with the desperate […]

Robert Kirby : Loose cannon If you’ve kept your finger on the pulse, you will have been as delighted as I was to see that torturous old South African racism has at last taken a refreshing turn for the worse. Like many pernicious things in our history, racism has always had a tendency to flourish […]

THURSDAY, 5.45PM: THE Mpumalanga portfolio committee for public accounts berated the province’s legislature on Thursday after it failed to explain mismanagement, inefficiency and financial irregularities over the last two years. After provincial auditor-general Douglas Maphiri told the committee that the legislature had failed to address many problems of uncontrolled expenditure and waste reported by the […]

THURSDAY, 5.45PM: THE all share index on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange ended a relatively thin day’s trade on positive ground, thanks to an 85-point leap in the financial index. At the close the financial index was up 84,7 points at 9 891,7 while the industrial index fell 17,4 points to 6 946,7. The all gold […]

THURSDAY, 12.00NOON: MAKHAYA NTINI may make history on Friday at The Waca. If Ntini gets the nod to play he will be the first black player to represent South Africa in a fully fledged one-day international. Ntini, who has played in first class matches on the tour, will probably play against New Zealand in order […]

THURSDAY 3.30PM: A DISMAL future is predicted for world food supplies by the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations. In his report for 1997, FAO director-general Jacques Diouf identified the increase in frequency and severity of disasters caused by war and climate as the likely causes. Diouf said that since the 1960s, the […]