Suzan Chala Vereeniging residents are facing possible health hazards, including cholera, owing to the spillage of raw sewage material into rivers in the area. Sewage pumps in the town have been breaking from time to time over the past three years, spilling raw sewage into the Suikerbos, Klip and Vaal rivers. The rivers serve as […]

The ANC’s alliance partners want to draw up a new economic strategy Jaspreet Kindra The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) has asked the South African Communist Party to develop a viable alternative to the government’s economic strategies. This, the union federation argues, would prevent the handing over of the African National Congress to […]

Vivienne Gray A new initiative to improve the literacy levels and impart computer skills to police officers is under way in KwaZulu-Natal as a pilot project carried out under the auspices of “business against crime”. The project is sponsored by Rotary, and conducted by Media Works’s adult basic education and training (Abet) programme. Three police […]

crossfire Oupa Bodibe Union investment companies have become the Achilles heel of the South African trade union movement, attracting claims that unions have moved away from their original purpose of representing workers and abandoning their socialist principles for an uncritical embrace of the market. Dale McKinley’s article (“Unions on the capitalist bandwagon”, June 22) falls […]

Belinda Anderson M-Cell subsidiary MTN’s R3,681-billion syndicated loan will be used to pay off its initial investment in Nigeria and to give it a kick-start to the initial phases of the project. M-Cell director Paul Edwards says the ability to raise the funds is a vote of confidence in a difficult period for telecommunications. MTN […]

Belinda Anderson South Africa’s newest media mogul believes the media landscape, once consolidated, will consist of two or three major players an independent group, an Afrikaans group and an empowerment grouping. Recently appointed Nail CEO Saki Macozoma ended speculation that he might facilitate a large financial services merger between Standard Bank, Metropolitan and Liberty. aloeCap […]

The heralded tour by the Bolshoi Ballet presents classical high points, but no real luminaries Ballet Andrew Gilder I could not help wondering, on the way to watch a performance of the Bolshoi Ballet, whether the troupe visiting South Africa was the same as that which performed for the recent meeting of the International Olympic […]

South Africans heaved a collective sigh of relief when the world community of 186 nations with the notable exception of the United States adopted the Kyoto protocol on climate change this week. Not only does the protocol promise to reduce pollution; if it had not been signed there would have been the very real possibility […]

David Macfarlane The University of the Transkei (Unitra) could close within three months. Students at the tottering institution returned this week from their mid-year vacation to hear that huge debts in the form of unpaid student fees, tax arrears and a bank overdraft mean that Unitra can keep going only till November. Past and present […]

Barry Streek The University of Transkei (Unitra), which has overdraft facilities of up to R78-million, is using its government subsidy to pay off its debt and will continue doing so in the next financial year, Minister of Education Kader Asmal has disclosed. ”The University of the Transkei has been in a critical financial position for […]