Mungo Soggot and Wonder Hlongwa The man who is likely to become deputy president of South Africa has been taken to court for not repaying his R120 000 overdraft and for failing to honour payments on a R400 000 home loan. Standard Bank confirmed this week that it successfully obtained judgment against Jacob Zuma — […]

Andy Duffy More than 530 people died at the hands of the police in the last nine months of 1997. Early investigations pinpoint police negligence as a main cause of the deaths, though the police watchdog, the Independent Complaints Directorate (ICD), has also found evidence of murder and culpable homicide. The ICD’s figures show that […]

John Seiler Important questions have been asked about the still-unresolved collapse of most major Pacific Rim financial markets and economies, but the common conclusion is flawed: that the Asian governments involved, and by extension this and other African governments, have a minimal role to play in dealing with the complex mix of economic and political […]

Belinda Beresford Guardian of the rand and watchdog of inflation, the Reserve Bank probably has as much impact on every South African’s finances as anything the government does. But, unlike Nelson Mandela, the bank is not national property. Unlike most of its counterparts across the globe, South Africa’s central bank is a private company which […]

Belinda Beresford Investor or tourist, gift-giver or generous parent bailing out stranded offspring, how can you best get your money out of the country? The quickest way of taking money overseas is to use your credit or debit card, although this can be expensive. Internationally, credit-card transactions are operated in dollars. A withdrawal in yen […]

Lizeka Mda : City Limits It’s no Swiss bank account, nor is it a safe full of jewels. But nevertheless, it is an inheritance. A spot under the Anderson Street overpass off the M2 freeway is Ntombeyiningi Zondi’s inheritance from her mother. Every morning she leans a table against a freeway pillar and sets out […]

In the style of the mystery novel penned via the Internet by John Updike et al, a new competition has been launched with the involvement of South African writer Jann Turner, author of Heartland. At the M-Web site http://www. mweb.co.za/valentine/, Turner has written the opening segment of a Valentine’s Day romance. Web-surfers can add the […]

Melvyn Minnaar Potable pleasures The nickname they have in common, promises pleasure. But whereas the white stuff offers play with a pinch of peril, the black substance carries a free-and-easy, “all-ages” prescription and a registered trademark. To the contemporary tune of Always Coca- Cola, Coke is hailed as universal libation of fun with a long […]

John Grobler In what amounts to an inquest into an inquest, the second judicial investigation into the Anton Lubowski assassination opens on Monday in the Windhoek High Court with what appears to be very little new evidence, a lack of political will to solve the murder and a vote of no confidence from the Lubowski […]

Janet Smith Down the tube Robert Powell’s haunted face is our most abiding cinematic image of Jesus, thanks to Franco Zeffirelli, the same director who said all those disgustingly true things about the public response to Princess Diana’s death last year. Zeffirelli would never perform a vulgar deed, which is why the spare, exquisite features […]