Despite economic crises, there’s money to be made on the stock exchange, writes Mark Allix Following the plunge of the Thai baht in July last year, the volatility on global stock exchanges is starting to take on biblical proportions – particularly the hellfire-and-brimstone warnings of the Old Testament variety. The 10th Commandment on covetousness and […]
FRIDAY, 4.30PM: A SHORTAGE shortage of cash for the maintenance of Eastern Cape schools has resulted in the loss this week of St Johns College Hostel by fire, and a second school being closed as a health hazard. The Daily Dispatch reported this week that the hostel was a result of the pupils having to […]
Robert Kirby: Loose Cannon Say what you like, the African National Congress is proving itself a paragon of what many modern democratic governments should strive to become. No more so is this ranking emphasised than in the ANC’s great resilience and, with that, fortitude, vision, determination, tenacity, sheer nerve and, when all else fails, that […]
Know your Mark Hughes from your Marcuse? With the World Cup less than a week away, even the intellectuals are muscling in on the beautiful game. Peter Lennon reports Predictably French philosophers, sociologists and literary critics are muscling in on the World Cup, peddling their cinq sous worth on the origins, motivation and significance of […]
Phillip Kakaza Jazz A brand-new Cosac Jazz Inn, in the heart of Yeoville, Johannesburg, promises to bring back some vibrancy to Rockey Street, an area doomed as a hideout for the “lost generation”. It’s a controversial street that, through the years, saw many such clubs fading away, leaving jazz enthusiasts floating around in search of […]
Tim Radford A heredity that helps some mountaineers breathe easily at Everest heights and keeps young soldiers at peak fitness could soon answer questions about heart disease and stroke. A team of British scientists revealed last week that in life’s genetic poker game, they may have identified the Ace hand for athletes. Ace stands for […]
Nedlac has come to the negotiation table with a proposal which could keep teachers in their classrooms, reports Sechaba ka’Nkosi A last-minute proposal tabled by the National Economic Development and Labour Council (Nedlac) to the government and the South African Democratic Teachers’ Union (Sadtu) could prevent the country’s biggest teacher strike next week. The strike […]
Poverty, abuse, addiction and fear drive many women to sex work, writes Swapna Prabhakaran Durban in autumn is viciously deceptive. The sun still shines as if it were summer, but the wind comes in off the ocean, picks up grit and sand, and stings like ice-cold splinters wherever it touches flesh. On Durban’s beachfront there […]
David Beresford It was one of those definitive moments in South African history, a moment that Eugene de Kock had long been waiting for. His five heavily armed bodyguards had taken up nervous positions around the courtroom. PW Botha was sitting in a well-padded chair, placed next to the dock in vague acknowledgement that he […]
ruins Amid Renamo ruins At sunrise, Chief Nchiri invokes the ancestors. Sitting with the chief around a sacred pakassa tree are seven men, barefoot and bare-chested. Nchiri has a white cloth draped around his waist. Nchiri explains to the ancestors that builders from Beira want to demolish the ruined houses of Maringu. Many people died […]