Johannesburg | Monday INTERNATIONAL rating agency Standard & Poor’s said on Monday it was unlikely to upgrade South Africa’s credit rating in the absence of improved economic growth and labour relations. Standard & Poor assigned South Africa a stable outlook rating last year, while Moody’s placed the country on positive ratings watch. Finance Minister Trevor […]
Hansie Cronje’s lawyers went on the offensive on Saturday in search of the indemnity from criminal prosecution the former South African captain is seeking from the South African government. Cronje, banned from cricket for life after becoming involved in a betting scandal, stands to win the indemnity if the government decides he has told the […]
GRIFFIN SHEA, Harare ZIMBABWE’S powerful trade unions on Saturday declared a two-day national stayaway for next week, despite warnings from government that the protest over fuel prices was illegal. The Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) decided after a special meeting Saturday “to carry out a two-day mass national protest on Tuesday July 3 and […]
EMSIE FERREIRA, Cape Town | Saturday TEN years ago the foundation stones of apartheid fell when the laws that divided people into black and white and forced them to live apart were wiped from South Africa’s statute books. The Population Registration Act of 1950, which required that everybody be classified at birth as belonging to […]
Cape Town | Saturday RESEARCHERS in South Africa and Britain have isolated the gene that causes retinitis pigmentosa, a leading cause of inherited blindness affecting one million people worldwide, a report said on Friday. Two scientists from the University of Cape Town and one from Britain have identified the culprit gene as RP13, which carries […]
Pilanesberg | Sunday SOUTH African President Thabo Mbeki, several ministers and some 60 journalists on Saturday ended an extraordinary meeting aimed at mending the troubled relationship between his government and the press, a report said. Mbeki closed the two-day meeting in Pilanesberg northwest of Johannesburg with an admission that government was partly to blame for […]
Timothy Wood American notes It is common cause that swashbuckling corporations are gaining power at the expense of governments. But the reverse is true as shown by General Electric’s (GE) stuttering merger with Honeywell. Worse still, it is unaccountable bureaucrats who are gaining ascendancy. GE, the United States’s fifth-largest company with sales of $130-billion, won […]
Mail & Guardian reporter The Mail & Guardian is moving to consolidate its position as the newspaper of the intelligentsia and political classes with a major redesign of the paper to be introduced next Friday. The redesign coincides with our record-breaking circulation growth among South Africa’s high earners and intellectuals. The most significant growth has […]
Niki Moore If the University of Zululand (Unizul) was a business, what happened there would be called a hostile takeover. Last Friday, Mangosutho Buthelezi was voted out as chancellor and Deputy President Jacob Zuma was voted in. Friday’s meeting of the university council should have been a fairly mundane affair, to discuss various matters related […]
James Campbell Glue by Irvine Welsh (Jonathan Cape) Irvine Welsh’s Trainspotting was about a bunch of daft lads (or sub-psychopaths) whose violence and amorality were supposedly explained by their origins in soulless Edinburgh housing schemes. They devoured drink, drugs and wee lassies by the ton. The one thing that inspired them was tribal loyalty: they […]