Philippa Garson Elmo should expand his cookie-baking skills to include detective work and do some off-set sniffing around, given the brewing controversy around Sesame Street, the pre-school television production in which he stars. Questions are being raised in the United States Congress about whether the R25-million granted by USAid to the Children’s Television Workshop (CTW) […]

Belinda Beresford The government is continuing its campaign to ensure that taxes become as unavoidable as death for South Africans with the latest budget, which reduced the overall income tax burden while attacking fringe benefits such as car allowances. The budget saw about R3,7-billion knocked off the income tax burden for South Africans, with the […]

Charlene Smith Political change is destroying Soweto shebeens, says shebeen king Godfrey Moloi and most tavern owners agree. When business was booming, from the late 1960s to the mid-1980s, Moloi (63) was one of the wealthiest men in Soweto, with gold jewellery and big houses. He would screen guests who came to his shebeens or […]

Jeremy Cronin: CROSSFIRE Isn’t it time to get Crossfire cross-firing? I am going to take a few pot shots at my friend and comrade, Pallo Jordan – with whom, on most things, I mostly agree. But first some anecdotal background. At the gold summit at the end of February, I was sitting in a Braamfontein […]

Robert McBride was allegedly investigating the highway heists when he was arrested in Mozambique this week. Wally Mbhele and Stefaans Br?mmer report Robert McBride, who was arrested in Mozambique this week for alleged gunrunning, was apparently on a special undercover mission to investigate supply routes feeding the highway heists. Senior African National Congress and government […]

Tony Twine A wise woman once told a class of students attending their first lecture on the subject that economics was nothing more than common sense made difficult. With the benefit of 25 years of hindsight, her students can now vouch for this rule, which has turned out to be far more immutable than the […]

Sharon Hammond The mangled skeleton of a young woman who died 1 500 years ago could settle a 20-year argument about when the practice of bartering cattle for women first started in southern Africa. The woman’s remains were discovered outside Nelspruit, in Mpumalanga, after bulldozers excavating a site for the Lowveld’s first large-scale shopping mall […]

Mungo Soggot The corruption crisis in South Africa’s state oil industry claimed its most important casualty so far when Minister of Minerals and Energy Penuell Maduna sacked his special adviser on energy this week. Maduna’s decision to axe his trusted aide Thulane Gcabashe, an African National Congress stalwart, has sent shock waves through the Department […]

Robert Kirby: Loose Cannon Gnaw on this dainty bone if you will. “The unfair labour practice provisions and provisions against dismissal for arbitrary reasons and unfair dismissal for incapacity should provide some protection.” Or what about this plum, in reply to the question: What is sexual harassment? “The imposition of unwanted conduct of a sexual […]

Angella Johnson No road signs mark the way to China Town. Unlike its wealthy neighbours which flaunt thatched-roof mansions to passing motorists, the impoverished township lies concealed behind a curtain of tall leafy trees. Also hidden in this dusty informal settlement – tucked between St Francis Bay and the Cape St Francis resort village in […]