The food sector of the Johannesburg Stock Exchange is overcrowded, with too few companies offering shareholders significant returns on their investments. In January 1996 the food index stood at 9 300. Within a year, it had fallen 100 points, recovered its losses and remained at this level until the October 1997 market correction. Between that […]
Mike Jensen Since the Internet depends on the quality of the underlying telecommunication infrastructure, the poor quality of the network remains a basic impediment to rapid growth in Internet use. While most African countries are extending and modernising their telecommunication networks, sub-Saharan Africa’s tele-density has stayed at less than one per 200 inhabitants. The telecommunication […]
Tangeni Amupadhi While police statistics show a decrease and a ”stabilisation” in serious crime over the past four years, a research agency has predicted criminality will increase over the next seven years. The Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) says in the Nedcor/Institute for Security Studies (ISS) Crime Index that murder, burglary and rape could shoot […]
THURSDAY, 7.00PM: THREE people were killed and one injured on Thursday afternoon in a taxi that was attacked between Libode and Umtata in Transkei, while three people were injured in a taxi-related shooting in Mamelodi near Pretoria. Three people have been arrested in connection with the Mamelodi incident. Police in Mamelodi fired teargas and stun […]
TUESDAY, 5.30PM: APARTHEID dirty tricks agent Ferdi Barnard’s advocate closed Barnard’s case in the Pretoria High Court on Monday, admitting that he was unable to find even one witness who was prepared to testify for Barnard. Advocate Faan Coetzee told the court that several witnesses were hesitant to testify as they would be implicated in […]
TUESDAY, 1.30PM: A REMARKABLE number of staff of the Safety and Security Ministry — including Minister Sydney Mufamadi, his driver, his private secretary, and the private secretary of his deputy minister — have all been involved in accidents while driving state-owned cars, the ministry revealed on Monday. “Good grief,” was the response of usually outspoken […]
They may look like Hell’s Angels but riders of Steel Wings club are not about beer and bluster, writes Swapna Prabhakaran On Sunday mornings they gather like outsize flies at their favourite Pretoria pub, Greenfields. Then the whole swarm – usually about 30 riders – takes off down the highway out of the city on […]
Alexandra residents take the World Bank to task over plans to expand the Lesotho Highlands Water Project We are a group of low-income residents of Alexandra township, near Sandton. We have filed a formal protest at the World Bank Inspection Panel – the equivalent of its auditor general – against the expansion of the Lesotho […]
Duncan Mackay When Josiah Thugwane lined up on Blackheath last Sunday for the London Marathon, he did so free from the worry that dogged his every footstep through the streets of Britain’s capital 12 months ago. Then the Olympic champion was racked with concern about the safety of his family in South Africa, fearing that […]
Andrew Worsdale : Movie of the week Love and Death on Long Island, a wryly observed romantic comedy, stars John Hurt as fuddy-duddy writer Giles De’ath. He works with a fountain pen; eats his meals at the same time every day; doesn’t have a television; hasn’t seen a movie in 20 years (he calls them […]