Wine, one of the great South African export stories of the past decade, is beginning to lose its fragrance. Most South African wines are now being exported at a loss as profit margins tumbled from the giddy heights of 2001, when the rand traded at R18 to the pound and R12 to the United States dollar.
While an interest in alternative energy and green politics is often seen as the preserve of the chattering classes, working-class people in Jo’burg’s inner city are already using renewable energy in their homes. On a pavement in Joubert Park in Jo’burg, shoppers cluster around Tumelo Ramolefi’s stall exclaiming and asking questions about his products.
By early next year retail banking will move into the 21st century and provide real-time electronic payments. While the Competition Commission’s report into the banking industry claims that banks have been working in real time since 1998, the reality is that this only applies to large corporate transactions of more than R5-million.
Ahmed Ayad was unfortunate to fall sick under what Israel and its allies in the West are defining as the ”ministries of terror”. The 42-year-old Palestinian father of five began kidney dialysis at a hospital in Gaza City six weeks ago at just about the time Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip and international sanctions against the Hamas government began to bite in the Health Ministry.
In The Da Vinci Code, the Holy Grail is neither an object nor an objective. It symbolises an earthshaking secret: Mary Magdalene bore a child with Jesus. The mega-selling book — the film version of which opens next week — is fiction. But, as far as Grail legends go, it’s in good company. The only undeniable truth about the Grail is that there’s no shortage of tales about it.
Close political allies of African National Congress deputy president Jacob Zuma are preparing to relaunch his presidential campaigns in a series of tripartite alliance forums in the next few months. These campaigns include pressing for his reinstatement as South Africa’s deputy president if he is cleared of the corruption charges, or the charges are thrown out on an application planned by his defence.
With the World Cup only weeks away, one of Wall Street’s leading financial houses recently switched its attention from gold, shares and the dollar to which emerging economy has the best chance of lifting the trophy in Berlin on July 9. The Goldman Sachs World Cup and Economics 2006 survey suggests there is a limit to how much overlap there is between the beautiful game and the murky world of finance.
From the quiet of a high-security lab, away from the furore about human ethics and religious castigation, some of the world’s cloning experts have come together on a groundbreaking project. Working to order, the scientists receive shipments of tissue from around the world, grow them and freeze them in liquid nitrogen, leaving the cells in suspended animation until word comes to revive them and create clones.
The digital age has brought the music listener and musician closer together, giving both power in a world traditionally controlled by fat cat music industry executives. No longer is it ”we produce, you consume”; now listeners are networking via the Internet and the industry is paying attention.
”Of particular note around the Jacob Zuma rape trial has been the fact that it invoked issues beyond the matter brought to court. For a long time Zuma has decried the fact that he was being tried outside court without a platform being afforded him to defend himself,” writes Zizi Kodwa, national spokesperson of the African National Congress Youth League.