centre Wonder Hlongwa Controversial Durban businessman Vivian Reddy, who was suspected of being the mysterious Sarafina II donor, has once again attracted attention for his generosity. Last week he announced an “eight digit” contribution to the Curries Fountain Stadium Sports Development Centre. The Mail & Guardian has learnt that Afrisun, a company in which Reddy […]

Paul Hayward : Motor Racing Michael Schumacher’s career was involved in a low-speed collision near Heathrow airport in London recently with the men who run Formula One. He emerged unscathed but the authority and integrity of F1 were a write- off. Now that he has escaped both a fine and a suspension for trying to […]

FRIDAY, 4.00PM: The soldier who removed the landmine intended to blow up Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe’s armoured Mercedes Benz (see below) said it was not powerful enough to penetrate the car’s armour. Lance Corporal John Manunure told the treason trial of opposition leader Ndabaningi Sithole that the claymore mine was an anti-personnel mine. While it […]

Stakeholders pass the buck and the blame for local content malaise, writes Glynis O’Hara Local contempt for local content. This accusation sparked quite a debate at last week’s Durban pow-wow on the state of local content on our airwaves. All parties – from Cabinet ministers, the SABC, M-Net, performers, technicians, community radio to record companies […]

Andrew Spencer : Golf There is something very special about the Nedbank Million Dollar Challenge at Sun City. Perhaps it is the size of the seven- figure purse – in American money nogal – or the simple fact that this is an elite field on an elite layout carved out of a slice of unremitting […]

infections `One of the tragedies of life, sir, is that it’s possible to become like that which we hate most,” Bishop Peter Storey said in powerful testimony to the truth commission’s hearing into Winnie Madikizela-Mandela and her football team this week. The primary cancer, he owned, was the oppression of apartheid, but “secondary infections have […]

evil In an extract from his book, Into the Heart of Darkness, journalist Jacques Pauw describes his meeting with Paul van Vuuren, whose only regrets were that he lost the war, was exposed and had to confess It is Sunday lunch on the farm “Drooglaagte” west of Warmbaths in the Northern Transvaal bushveld. The burly, […]

Dawood Dithato Deputy Minister of Safety and Security Joe Matthews will not be prosecuted on 12-year- old charges that he embezzled his clients’ money while practising as an attorney in Botswana in the 1980s. The office of the attorney general in Botswana is abandoning its long pursuit of Matthews after the deputy minister reportedly repaid […]

Dan Atkinson in London and Mark Milner in Seoul When Yamaichi Securities was looking for a discreet home for 1-billion-odd of bad trades, it didn’t have to look for long. There was really just one place for the duff trades – offshore. And, for the true connoisseur of offshore, the destination of the dud deals […]

Thebe Investment Company pioneered a new South African corporate culture but black business still has far to go, writes Charlene Smith Seven years ago there were no black companies listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange; indeed there was not a single black corporation. Pondering this, Vusi Khanyile, then finance head of the African National Congress, […]