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 […]

Obituary Taffy and David Adler Ray Harmel (n,e Adler), veteran anti-apartheid activist and a member of the South African Communist Party, the Garment Workers Union and the African National Congress died in London on March 11 at the age of 91. Known for her tenacious, unswerving and principled support for worker and human rights, she […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

Gwen Ansell: CD of the week Reedman and composer Henry Threadgill is a graduate of Chicago’s Association for the Advancement of Creative Music, and his work with the bands Air and Very Very Circus married open arrangements and dense textures in a way which often subverted expectations – all-brass ensembles, no-bass ensembles, Jelly Roll Morton-meets-Ornette […]

Nicole Turner As the government battles to stem the brain-drain of professionals from rural areas to urban centres, South Africa’s youngest and fastest-growing university is improving the skills of thousands of rural teachers from disadvantaged backgrounds every year. Vista University’s Distance Education Campus (Vudec) in Pretoria enrolled 10 079 students last year, all of them […]

Charlene Smith Trevor Manuel’s budget speech was littered with wisecracks, designed to lighten the serious business of balancing the country’s pressing priorities – creating jobs, cutting a bloated bureaucracy, accelerating infrastructural development and attacking corruption. But behind the gentle banter of the amiable finance minister were tough policies and strategies that spoke directly to investors […]