Melvyn Minnaar : Potable pleasures Despite a multitude of folkloric fixes and other frivolities – or the remedies mothers-in-law dictate over the phone when the baby needs to be fed at dawn – there is no instant cure for the hangover. If you haven’t taken enough Essentiales or Prohep (that means a handful) the night […]

Andrew Tylecote The developing countries of East Asia, led by China, have been the locomotive of the world economy this decade. An enormous inflow of capital has allowed them to run large current account deficits. This has done a great deal to boost demand in the West. Any such capital inflow depends on confidence that […]

Alex de Waal In June 1993, a Belgian soldier serving with the United Nations in Somalia put a gun to the head of one of my Somali colleagues and threatened to shoot him. At the time I was investigating the war in Somalia: that the residents were living in fear of the peacekeepers came as […]

Johnny Masilela Chief Lucas Mangope’s political comeback has been smacked by a stream of high-profile defections from his United Christian Democratic Party (UCDP) – among them his own sister. It has also emerged that Roelf Meyer’s and Bantu Holomisa’s United Democratic Movement (UDM) is the main beneficiary of Mangope’s losses. Celia Ditsetelo, Mangope’s younger sister […]

The local branch of a church probed for fraud was behind a bid for Capital Radio, writes Suzy Bell Quima Investments last week failed to win its licence bid for Capital Radio because it neglected to reveal vital information to the Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA), including details of a controversial backer. The consortium was slapped […]

The impudent truth commissioner Stefaans Brmmer Truth commissioner Dumisa Ntsebeza is impetuous, arrogant (or very confident, depending on your vantage point), ambitious and fiercely independent. Add to that an almost naive openness and you have someone asking to be beaten up on, leaving his guard way down when the knock-out punch is thrown. By Monday […]

FRIDAY 10AM: The owners of small and medium-sized businesses are “deeply pessimistic” about the cost, low productivity and general hassle factor of the low-skill labour market, according to survey results announced on Thursday by the South African Institute of Race Relations. The survey, conducted among 300 businesses, found the rate of unemployment 6% lower than […]

One of my favourite films was Being There, starring Peter Sellers. For those who have not shared in the privilege of seeing it (it was banned in the old South Africa), the story – based on a book of the same name by Jerzy Kosinski – is of a gardener who was adopted by a […]

Andrew Muchineripi : Boxing Corrie Sanders could become the third boxer from South Africa to hold the world heavyweight title if he beats tough-as-teak American Ross Puritty next Saturday. The two clash for the vacant World Boxing Union (WBU) title on the Jumbo Cash and Carry bill dubbed the “Amabuthu Empi” extravaganza at the Carousel […]