FRIDAY, 10AM: RESERVE Bank governor Chris Stals said on Friday that the recent market shake-up has helped curb bank credit extension, making it easier to bring rates down — and he hinted that this would happen before the March budget, perhaps even before the end of the year. He told a conference in Cape Town: […]

FRIDAY, 4:30PM: THREE Pretoria prostitutes charged with running a brothel have called on the Pretoria High Court to refer their case to the Constitutional Court because they argue that the Sexual Offences Act discriminates against women. Their call comes in a week when the Gauteng provincial executive has given its support to legalising prostitution, sparking […]

In an effort to protect its election chances, the ANC chose to shield warlord Sifiso Nkabinde despite his reign of terror in Richmond, write Sechaba ka’Nkosi and Wonder Hlongwa The African National Congress was warned five years ago that KwaZulu-Natal warlord Sifiso Nkabinde was an apartheid spy – but chose to shield him to avoid […]

FRIDAY, 3.00PM: SOL KERZNER’S Sun International Hotels reports record third quarter results, with earnings per share 96% up on the same period last year. The Company generated net income of $17,2 million compared to net income of $7,7 million for the same period last year. For the nine months ended September 30, the Company achieved […]

Dominique Gallois On October 27 the French oil company Elf Aquitaine published a communiqu stating that its chair, Philippe Jaffr, had gone to Congo-Brazzaville on October 26 and met the victor of the civil war, Denis Sassou- Nguesso. This was the second time in the past few months that Elf had to reveal its chair’s […]

A new musical about the famous saxophonist Kippie Moeketsi is in rehearsal at Windybrow. Gwen Ansell watched It’s been said you can classify creative artists as Apollonian or Dionysian. The Apollonians are the cool intellectuals who think their shit out logically and fastidiously, eschewing guts and passion: it was probably their crew who invented New […]

track Madeleine Wackernagel : TAKING STOCK Mahathir Mohamed, the Malaysian premier, was right in criticising the currency speculators at this week’s G15 meeting, but for the wrong reason. Since the crisis first struck in Thailand in July, the economies of South-East Asia have borne the brunt of the currency and stock-market fallout. Much of that […]

Matthew Engel reports on the troubled heart of Kenya, once Africa’s greatest hope, now with its social fabric crumbling and an election due before the end of the year It is half way through the equatorial afternoon. In the wood-panelled parliamentary chamber, a grey-haired African in a dark suit gets to his feet on the […]

Barney Spender : Rugby Crossing the road in Bologna can be a difficult and dangerous business. The drivers of the cars and buses at least have the decency to lean on their horns before flying past; the ubiquitous Lambrettas, on the other hand, do not. They come from nowhere and are gone before the dawdling […]

Charl Blignaut A decade ago, when South African pay channel M-Net was launched, the company had already attracted its fair share of critics. There were those who complained that the Hollywood-crazy, sport-obsessed, money-making television service was not really interested in an African broadcasting agenda and was not intending to invest in much local television production. […]