The David Gleason Column The great conundrum for all South Africans as the year winds down is what will happen to interest rates and why are they still so incredibly high. Before May this year, international investors saw South Africa as one of the more reliable and stable of the emerging markets. They invested heavily, […]

Jardine Howard Barrell There is growing concern in government circles over the extraordinary public attack this week by the Minister of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology, Lionel Mtshali, on his Director General, Roger Jardine, who recently announced his resignation. In a statement from abroad on Wednesday, where he is on a visit, Mtshali implied that […]

Stewart Dalby Spending It Antique clocks belong to an area of collecting, like Impressionist paintings, coins and vintage cars, which crashed in the early Nineties. This was because they were bought for investment. Why grandfather and other clocks should have been sought for speculative purposes is curious. Antique clocks are quintessentially English. It was not […]

Andrew Worsdale Movie of the week Is director Brian de Palma a sick puppy? I think not. Often vilified for his obsessive use of violence and his voyeuristic style of exploitation, he is nevertheless a master cinematic stylist. De Palma, whose latest film Snake Eyes opens next week, has directed 25 movies, all exquisitely visually […]

from the inquest courts Leading human rights lawyer George Bizos has written an account of inquests into the deaths of people who died in detention under apartheid. This is an edited extract from the book After its passage through Parliament in 1963, the detention without trial law soon claimed its first victim. On August 20 […]

Sechaba ka’Nkosi Agusta, the company which won a R2,2- billion contract last week to supply the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) with 40 A109 helicopters, has been implicated in a multimillion- dollar corruption trial in Belgium. The company has been accused of bribing politicians in an attempt to win defence contracts. Last week it […]

Stuart Hess Next Tuesday millions of people will observe yet another World Aids Day in a bid to raise awareness about the epidemic ravaging African countries. In South Africa, as in many developing countries, efforts to combat the spread of HIV, the virus that causes Aids, have failed. South Africa is considered to have one […]

`snub’ Mungo Soggot The Bar and the Bench were awash with speculation this week that Judge John Myburgh is to resign as president of the Labour Court and quit the judiciary after being snubbed for promotion by the Judicial Service Commission (JSC). It is understood that Judge Myburgh, one of South Africa’s most respected judges, […]

teacher Swapna Prabhakaran Durban maths teacher Busi Mzimela is paid her salary every month, despite the fact that she has not set foot inside a classroom for more than 18 months. Mzimela says she stopped teaching last April after a disagreement about her post at Ntwenhle High School. With several degrees behind her name, Mzimela […]