Bronwyn Jones finds more brilliant and bizarre inventions in her monthly look through the Patents Journal DON’T let the thousands of expected redundancies at Anglo American’s Freegold fool you; if the Patents Journal is anything to go by, South African mining is going from strength to strength. There are 15 major new mining patents this […]

Eddie Koch Griqua leaders have sent a letter to President Nelson Mandela to back demands for the bones of a 19th-century chief to be returned and reburied after they were dug up by researchers from Wits University more than 30 years ago. The Griqua National Conference this week sent a statement to M&G saying it […]

After the stunning display against Ghana South Africa have to lift themselves once again to take on the wily, talented Tunisians SOCCER: Paul Mandelson JOHN MOSHOEU, Mark Fish, Lucas Radebe and Clive Barker must have had countless dreams — asleep and wide awake — about crucial tackles, glorious goals and winning the African Cup of […]

Marion Edmunds A black female SABC employee, Hope Zindle, has been charged with assault and intent to commit grievous bodily harm after she grabbed a white colleague, Janet Szabo, around the throat. The matter is being heard in Brixton Magistrate’s Court where Zindle has pleaded not guilty to the charge. The case has provoked a […]

Karen Harverson Once exchange controls are lifted, the South African investment community’s interest in offshore opportunities will snowball, says Syfrets Group chief executive Christopher Beatty, speaking at a launch this week of new international investment products. However, he cautioned that investors need to react quickly to changes in the international economy and understand the risks […]

The Nation of Islam leader spoke during his vist to South Africa this week of creating a homeland for more than a million black American convicts, report Vuyo Mvoko and David Beresford Louis Farrakhan, the Black American firebrand who is trying to fill the shoes of Martin Luther King, has dreamed an extraordinary dream — […]

CINEMA: Andrew Worsdale HUEY NEWTON, one of the founders of the Black Panther movement, was a great fan of Melvin Van Peebles’s 1971 movie Sweet Sweetback’s Baadassss Song. He even analysed that funky box-office smash, writing that its tale of a hustler who evolves into a revolutionary was an allegory of a `street brother who […]

Education in the new South Africa: While apartheid still rules on the platteland, Soweto schools stand half empty as pupils move to the suburbs The week after white parents barred black pupils from Potgietersrus Primary, Justin Pearce found apartheid to be a fact of life at many Northern Province schools Grey-haired, bespectacled headmaster Hennie Berg […]

Karen Harverson Newly appointed chief executive of the Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA) Ian Goldin may face an uphill battle from some of the bank’s staff who feel a black candidate would have been more suited to lead its transformation. For the past 18 months the bank has been racked with mass departures, and […]

Rehana Rossouw In a field on the edge of Parkwood Estate in Cape Town is a ramshackle wooden building with a tiny garden lending a splash of colour to the dreary township. The garden is filled with petunias, marigolds, tomatoes, cabbages … and dagga. This is the home of Bernard Brown of the Burning Spear […]