Exciting Currie Cup matches cannot disguise the unhappiness of players at their treatment by Sarfu RUGBY: Jon Swift THIS season’s Currie Cup has proved, in many instances, to be a memorable one. Matches have been hard-fought and no one side can truly be said to be running away from the opposition. On paper, the season […]

What must South Africa do to attract — and keep — Japanese investment? Karen Harverson reports The Southern African region will almost certainly get Japanese investment in the future, but it needs to learn from the experiences of Asian countries which have attracted the bulk of Japanese investment and continue to attract it. Speaking at […]

The sentencing of 18-year-old schoolboy Uwer Rayner Campher to four years’ jail without the option of a fine, just a few hours after his arrest, has been described by Lawyers for Human Rights as “absurd”. “Bizarre”, “asinine” and “idiotic” are just a few other adjectives which spring to mind. Campher was caught dealing in LSD […]

Neil Bierbaum SUPPLIERS of satellite dishes and decoders are advising consumers to wait for an expected reduction in import duties before ordering the new technology — but if there is a rush, manufacturers may not be able to meet the demand. The current 77,5 percent duty on satellite receiving equipment is expected to come down […]

Our continuing series of extracts from Parliamentary Whip, the publication of Idasa’s Parliamentary Information and Monitoring Service (Pims), the most comprehensive Parliament-watching team Christelle Terreblanche and Richard Calland THE African National Congress last week rejected reports that Parliament was in crisis while, off the record, MPs and chairpersons of committees continued to relate frustrations over […]

Rehana Rossouw MINERAL and Energy Affairs Minister Pik Botha this week blamed the Strategic Fuel Fund (SSF) for allowing a “rust bucket” tanker — which spilled 66.5 tons of crude oil into the sensitive Saldanha Bay area — to slip through safety controls. The spill, some of which seeped into the Langebaan lagoon reserve, fulfilled […]

M&G Reporter ONLY three of the country’s nine premiers passed the Mail & Guardian’s second Government Efficiency Test. The newspaper investigated whether the premiers care enough about ordinary citizens to answer their letters. After six weeks, responses to a citizen’s letter had been received only from Gauteng’s Tokyo Sexwale, the Northern Cape’s Manne Dipico and […]

Fruit and vegetables, masks and cloth are just some of the props called into play at the African Puppet Theatre Festival. DAVID LE PAGE reports LUNCH-HOUR traffic crowds the streets in Rosebank, Johannesburg. An unusually hot sun beats down. At the junction of Oxford and Glenhove roads, two photographers and several traffic officers wait. The […]

Local-content rules will help the industry, writes IBA chair Peter de Klerk in a response to the M&G THE new local-content rules for television are designed to build a South African TV-programme-making industry —so that South Africans can see and hear themselves on our TV screens, and to create jobs in a key industry of […]