Jonathan Proctor is the former head of Bop Broadcasting Corporation. The bte noir of Lucas Mangope, he aired certain programmes well before Aunty-SABC dared. Publicity-shy and independent, this is a broadcaster with a plethora of skills. He will lead e.tv for five years with Richard Magau as his deputy. Magau is an all-rounder from Bop-TV […]

Mish Middelmann ‘To hell with having our cake and eating it,” Microsoft seems to be saying, “we want the whole damn bakery!” Two weeks ago, Reality Bytes said Microsoft products were declining in quality, while the company begins to undermine its own flagship of universal compatibility. But neither Microsoft nor Bill Gates are stupid or […]

Manne Dipico : Right to Reply I categorically deny the allegations made against me by Dean Snyders (“Manne Dipico framed me”, March 13 to 19) and wish to draw your attention to several distortions. The journalist who wrote the report did so without reference to my office. I believe that Sechaba ka’Nkosi, despite being a […]

Tangeni Amupadhi Members of a vigilante group in Alexandra township have vowed to continue fighting crime despite the killing of two of their members by alleged criminals in one year. Petrus Mathibela (30) was shot dead on Sunday when he and 100 other Comrades – the name the vigilante group uses – tried to raid […]

Telebook, a recently launched international online bookstore, has established a Cape Town branch. Adatabase of more than 1,2-million books can be searched, by title, author, key word, subject, publisher or ISBN number. At present there are four databases: English, German, Spanish, and Dutch titles, with the addition of Afrikaans and French soon to take place. […]

Mungo Soggot The liquidators of mining company Amalia want to undertake a forensic audit into how the company raised money from the public, how the money was spent and whether insolvency laws were broken. Auditors Coopers & Lybrand were called in to liquidate the company last month after a high court order which followed Amalia’s […]

Ann Eveleth South Africa’s rural poor gave a stern warning to the government this week as the first round of Speak Out on Poverty hearings opened in the Northern Province. Dozens of rural participants from across the arid, sun-drenched province crowded into church halls and community centres to tell their stories of desperation and survival […]

Arnab Neil Sengupta : A Second Look For weeks now, the Congressional Budget Office and the White House have been crowing about the United States government’s first budget surplus in 30 years. The rough estimate – $8-billion – is small change by US standards, but it is likely to grow over several years. Whether this […]

The finale of the private TV channel bid was nail-biting and the fall-out spiteful, writes Ferial Haffajee Around the world, races for private television licences are known as beauty competitions. While the finalists in the contest for South Africa’s prized new private television licence didn’t parade in swim-suits and the judges didn’t make flimsy jokes, […]

Andy Duffy A teacher at a state school in the Northern Province has shot himself, apparently because he was caught netting four salaries a month for one job. The Gazankulu teacher was trapped when he tried to collect the pay cheques during a sting operation the province set up last month to expose “ghost workers” […]