Major Test matches come around so often these days, that it is easy to allow one to slip unremarked into another. But when the Springboks play the All Blacks, the world tends to slow down and this week in Durban was a time for reflection. The last two Tests between these sides at King’s Park were memorable for entirely contrasting reasons.
The Johannesburg Labour Court would on Friday rule whether police service members could join the public-service strike. During arguments on Thursday, lawyers for the police and the Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union spent much time arguing which categories of South African Police Services employees were essential and which not.
President Thabo Mbeki will attend the launch of a book on his governance by Ronald Suresh Roberts at the presidential guest house in Pretoria on Friday. The book, Fit to Govern: The Native Intelligence of Thabo Mbeki, will be launched at 7pm.
It starts with a good old-fashioned epic, and ends with one. Citizen Kane, Orson Welles’s 1941 biopic about a newspaper magnate, topped a poll of the 100 best films announced by the American Film Institute on Thursday. At the bottom of the list was Ben-Hur, William Wyler’s 1959 spectacle starring Charlton Heston.
Zwelinzima Vavi does not seem to run out of hyperbole to illustrate what is wrong with the government’s economic policies. "It is like a doctor saying an operation has been successful when the patient is dead," he said to great laughter when addressing a youth rally in Mangaung in the Free State last Saturday.
More strikes loom in major sectors of the economy, with labour watchers suggesting that the worker militancy surrounding the public-service strike is feeding into other pay disputes. Strikingly, many of the disputes involve black and white unions.
In a rapidly converging telecoms sector, the big question on everyÂbody’s lips is when Telkom will sell Vodacom and who it will partner to re-enter the mobile market. MTN might seem a perfect fit with its large African footprint, but analysts feel the price tag of between R250-billion and R300-billion is too costly for Telkom. The deal would be unlikely to get approval from the competition authorities.
Senior company officials have confirmed that a shortage of skills has been one of the most costly and troublesome issues affecting the management of South African businesses in the past two years. This was a finding of a recent Centre for Development and Enterprise (CDE) survey, which included a cross-section of 40 businesses recruiting skilled labour in Gauteng.
What can trade unions, employers and the state do to reduce violent intimidation during strikes — which all observers agree is on the increase? <i>Matuma Letsoalo</i> asked Grahamstown-based advocate John Grogan, and Frans Baleni, the general secretary of the National Union of Mineworkers, for their practical proposals.
Forget Freddy Krueger and Norman Bates — here comes Burqa Man. The first serious Pakistani horror flick for a quarter of a century features a psychopath dressed in a blood-soaked version of the traditional garb of Islamic women. Hordes of zombies, including an undead dwarf, add to the gore in the self-financed <i>Zibahkhana (Hell’s Ground)</i>.