MONDAY, 9.00AM: BRITAIN’s Sunday Telegraph revealed on Sunday that Anglo American plans this week to merge its gold mining operations into a single R20-billion company, to combat pressure from falling gold prices. Although Anglo American refused to comment, interim results are scheduled to be announced on Tuesday. It is expected that the opportunity will be […]

MONDAY, 9.00AM: A PRETORIA court has placed the Islamic bank under provisional liquidation after a Reserve Bank-appointed auditor declared that the bank is insolvent. The Islamic Bank operates in accordance with Muslim principles and charges no interest. Instead it takes up shares in any venture it lends to, and treats deposits as inputs into a […]

Andy Duffy One of the country’s most influential ambassadors has rejected an invitation to join Western Cape Premier Hernus Kriel’s provincial Cabinet. Kriel, who is to reshuffle and expand his Cabinet in line with the province’s new Constitution, approached LT Links, South Africa’s ambassador to the European Union, to persuade him to take a seat […]

Science clashes with tradition over the corpse of an ancient princess. James Meek reports from Novosibirsk The princess lies in a glass casket on the West Siberian plain alongside her kinsman. She is naked save for a scrap of gauze draped across the top of her legs. Tattooed beasts – part griffin, part deer, part […]

Peter Preston Gerald Scarfe was one of the most vicious cartoonist-satirists of the Sixties. He made Harold Wilson lick LBJ’s backside, Richard Nixon wipe his with the American flag. He hacked open heads and let the cortex of politics drip to the floor. He was the scabrous spirit of a slimy age. And now? Meet […]

blood Robert Armstrong : Rugby As teenagers New Zealanders learn that rugby union is a potent symbol of their nationhood. And by early manhood those who have made the grade are regarded as icons in every town, from Whangarei to Invercargill. When England face the All Blacks on Saturday they must come to terms with […]

We profile the four winners of the 1998 Standard Bank Young Artist Award Aubrey Sekhabi, 28-year-old winner of the 1998 Standard Bank Young Artist Award for Drama, is “a relentless, tenacious spirit”, says Dan Robbertse of the Performing Artists Workers Equity. “He’s been doing great work in North West province as drama director with very […]

A free-trade deal with Europe is only a matter of months away, writes Madeleine Wackernagel Talks with the European Union (EU) over a free-trade agreement have dragged on for so long that the typical response to yet another statement from one side or the other is confusion at best, lack of interest at worst. But […]

FRIDAY, 8:00AM: A LABOUR court has ordered the striking Harmony mine workers back to work from this morning. Mine management has also warned that strikers who forcibly evicted ‘official’ union shaft stewards from their offices will face charges. THURSDAY, 11:00AM: THE National Union of Mineworkers has blamed Harmony mine management for a strike by an […]