Glenda Daniels South Africa’s Skills Development Levy Act comes into effect on May 5 to kick off a process that would see the retraining of the country’s 10-million- strong workforce. However, more than 180E000 employers still have to register with the South Africa Revenue Service (SARS) to comply with the provisions of the new Act. […]

man-made disaster? Jean-Baptiste Naudet Ethiopia has been fighting its neighbour, Eritrea, since May 1998. Two of the poorest countries in the world, they are now both calling on the international community to help them deal with a drought that could, they say, result in famine for millions. Is the disaster they face a natural one, […]

Neil McIntosh The company many like to paint as the Internet’s David finally got its slingshot working again last week. Netscape, once synonymous with the Web and the Internet boom, unveiled its latest Web browser a day after Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson delivered his damning findings of law against the Internet’s Goliath – Microsoft. The […]

Andy Capostagno RUGBY The Super 12 has reached the point of no return. Those coaches who have invested in slide rules to calculate the lowest number of log points required to reach the semi- finals can throw them away on Monday if their teams lose this weekend. That goes for John Connolly of the Reds […]

Fiona Macleod When a dog has a cat up a tree, you hope that it either loses interest or its owner calls it to heel. But what do you do when neither intervention takes place? This is the dilemma facing one of two groups claiming title to the Friends of the Cat welfare organisation, based […]

Shaun de Waal MOVIE OFTHEWEEK It was Edward Said who, in his book Culture and Imperialism, pointed to an aspect of Jane Austen’s 1814 novel Mansfield Park that had not been much remarked upon. It was slavery. Such a heavy issue may seem at odds with the sequestered world of Jane Austen, who compared her […]

Matthew Krouse CDs OFTHEWEEK Ns (Hannibal) is Virgnia Rodrigues’s second album. According to Internet sources she is a 35-year-old ex- manicurist and domestic worker from the slums of Salvador. On the cover of her latest album you can see the star of Salvador, who now makes her music in Brazil – centre of the Latin-American […]

Ike Broslovski For most South Africans, the words Krushed’n’Sorted (K&S) are directly associated with their favourite pastime: a dope-induced suspension of reality that happens when the job is done and the toys have been scattered out to play. In Cape Town, however, those very same concepts have been given a new dimension by drum’n’bass DJ/producers […]

Cameron Duodu LETTER FROM THE NORTH The scene: Mid-morning at Stagnant Pool. Many insects are flapping about in the greenish-brown-black water, which smells badly. Some are fanning themselves on blades of grass. Male Anopheles mosquito:Whnnnnngggggg! [Translation] Hey, Mama, feel like a little fooling around? Nothing like a warm morning like this to make you remember […]

Jaspreet Kindra A fresh cycle of political violence has gripped KwaZulu-Natal in the run-up to the November local government elections, with Inkatha Freedom Party stronghold Nongoma the centre of this storm. The town has been witness to the killing of at least two IFP leaders in a fresh burst of violence in the past two […]