Etrade has a substantial investor education centre. It moves from the basics of investing, how markets work, how to read financial statements, tax basics and advanced investing strategies. (www.etrade.co.za) Tradek offers a fairly comprehensive but less user-friendly guide to investing. (www.tradek.com) etaxes lists upcoming seminars on tax management. But be warned they are all booked […]

Stephen Gray Silence descends on a festival venue as the last audience heads off. Performers who have displayed all their talents, their heads echoing with the adrenaline of applause, wonder where the next job is. They start planning for the next National Arts Festival. Annual visitors who packed their programmes from breakfast to bed, cheaply […]

Sculpture provides an unexpected connection between two cities, writes Clive Chipkin Both Vancouver and Johannesburg began as late-19th century urban settlements that rapidly grew into sophisticated world cities. Both were founded in 1886 and both celebrated their golden jubilees in 1936 with an exchange of greetings between sister cities of the empire. This resulted in […]

The unit trust industry has a lot of work to do if it wants to regain the trust of small investors Neil Thomas The unit trust industry is making much of the relative recovery in the local equities market this year. It’s doubtful, though, that investors bruised by more than two years of unit trust […]

Andrew Botha makes his directorial debut in Pro Musica’s production of Rigoletto. It won’t be ordinary, writes Paul Boekkooi After being involved in more than 60 opera productions in South Africa and internationally, Andrew Botha is confident of breaking with tradition in Verdi’s Rigoletto. “I know there’s a strong buzz around the fact that ‘here […]

Sherilee Bridge Investors spooked by the bloodbath on the global equities markets are being forced to find safer havens for their capital. South African investors have taken so well to the lower risk of the Saitrix 40 a fund that tracks the performance of the JSE Securities Exchange’s top 40 stocks that the unit trust […]

ART Antoinette du Plessis Most frequently, academic literature on the subject of tourist art is concerned with aspects of the production of artefacts for sale to tourists. Less easy to research with any kind of pretence of academic rigour is the other end of the equation the tourist/traveller as patron, as consumer, as communicator. How […]

Ntuthuko Maphumulo “Every game that we play is about winning the three points, prestige and honour,” said Bafana Bafana coach Carlos Queiroz in announcing the squad to face Malawi this weekend in Durban. Since taking over the squad late last year Queiroz has taken every game seriously and he’s not about to change that for […]

The tubers of the elephant ear plant might not look good, but don’t let that stop you from trying them, Andrea Burgener The appearance of the tropical-looking elephant ear plant is familiar to most of us, but less known are the truly wondrous edibles it offers. The populations of South America, West Africa, India and […]

THE World Bank has approved a $6,3-million credit for Tanzania to rescue a rare species of toad threatened by a hydropower station. The Kihansi spray toads’ survival depended on the spray of the Kihansi falls, but the delicate habitat conditions began to evaporate with the building of the 180 megawatt hydropower station in Tanzania’s southern […]