By negotiating forward cover, Eskom’s foreign loans cost it nothing, but they do cost the taxpayer, reports Simon Segal Eskom’s second samurai bond, a R550-million five-year issue, is expected to reflect an improved credit rating for Eskom and, by implication, South African borrowers in general. The loan is expected to be priced at 50 to […]

Take one of the dirt roads that run off the main tar road to St Lucia into the dense undergrowth of the Dukuduku and visit one of the settlements that have been carved into the forest. It will be a salutary lesson in how the poorest of the poor in this country experience nature conservation. […]

Natal have bounced back from a hiding by Northern Transvaal and are playing sparkling rugby just in time for their tough Super 12 tour Down Under RUGBY: Jon Swift THERE is, in the current vernacular, a phrase which opines that whatever goes round comes round. It is one of those seemingly inane bits of homespun […]

After their acrimonious TV debate, legal academic Dennis Davis and Human Rights Commission head Barney Pityana had a rapprochement in the parking lot, reports Justin Pearce Dennis Davis has withdrawn his call for Barney Pityana to resign as head of the Human Rights Commission. This was one outcome of a rapprochement between the two men […]

CHANTING, placard-waving students occupied the Peninsula Technikon’s Student Representative Council offices on Wednesday, demanding the immediate reinstatement of its former president Solly Lamini. Following charges by a female student that she had been lewdly fondled by Lamini last year, a campus disciplinary committee found him guilty of sexual harassment. He was first suspended from the […]

Justin Pearce Among the ornaments crowding every shelf in Johanna Claasens’s living room in Welkom is a mug with the inscription “Harmony Gold Mine – — 5 000 accident-free shifts”. It was given to her by a friend after Harmony’s worst accident ever — the Merriespruit mudslide in February 1994, which killed 17 people, including […]

Gaye Davis AFRICAN National Congress MP Carl Niehaus has charged Correctional Services Minister Dr Sipo Mzimela with displaying “one-upmanship” rather than the leadership necessary to effect change in South Africa’s prisons. In a letter to Mzimela this week, Niehaus said the “deepening crisis” in the Department of Correctional Services needed “strong, transparent and consultative leadership”. […]

Julian Drew SOUTH AFRICAN 5 000m record holder Shadrack Hoff of Pretoria Correctional Services is in awesome shape at the moment. He just missed the national 10 000m record in Port Elizabeth two weeks ago and has already posted an Olympic qualifier in the 5 000m this year. While Hoff’s times won’t make the likes […]

If one goes back to the Dennis Davis article in this newspaper — which led to the furious counter-attack from Human Rights Commission head Barney Pityana, and this week’s impassioned television debate — it is striking how mild his criticism was. Davis lamented the commission’s “lack of profile” and the appointment of its members. He […]

Amichand Rajbansi, the much-pilloried leader of the Minority Front, is back in the political limelight and being hailed as a saviour, writes Ann Eveleth ‘Bengal Tiger” Amichand Rajbansi played the key role in securing KwaZulu-Natal’s Constitution last week. Walking out of the parliamentary chamber in Pietermaritzburg last Friday morning, bleary-eyed after the 24-hour negotiations which […]