Alison Motluk A simple skin patch might soon help psychiatrists identify people with schizophrenia – a diagnosis that can be very difficult to make. The developers of the test also hope that it will help sufferers accept that they need medication. The “niacin skin flush test” consists of a plastic strip bearing squares of absorbent […]

FRIDAY, 10AM: Dorbyl’s Chubby mine-clearing system, already sold to France, Uganda and Britain, is being tested by the US Army in Baltimore after modifications the Americans requested before committing to a substantial order. The system includes the Meerkat, a lead vehicle, and the Husky, as well as an armoured trailer called the Duisenpoot. Modifications have […]

Susannah Barron and Charl Blignaut : Style What links … DJ Bob Mabena and your granddad? Supermodel Naomi Campbell and the mother of the bride? Kwaito fly girls Aba Shante and the golfing fraternity? Yes, they all wear those hats with the cute kangaroo logo. Hat company Kangol has come a very long way indeed […]

FRIDAY, 10.00AM: Bankers Capital Alliance have bought Decimax, days after the derivative traders lost R30-million in the stock market crash. In the R80-million deal, Decimax management’s holdings have been cut from 65% to 30%, with Capital Alliance in control of the balance. Financial services firm Theta sold its 35% stake to Capital Alliance for R30-million […]

Glynis O’Hara Tom Hark is one of those South African classic songs that simply won’t lie down and go away. Recorded by Elias and His Zig Zag Jive Flutes in the 1950s, it became a huge hit. It was played by big bands well into the 1960s; used as a theme song for a British […]

Why should the conservation fraternity be let off the hook, asks Farieda Khan In recent months we have witnessed the spheres of medicine and journalism being placed under the spotlight of the truth commission. If editors have to answer accusations of collusion and silence when confronted by the excesses of apartheid, and medical authorities have […]

THURSDAY, 10.30AM: A DRAFT white paper covering affirmative action in government requires the public service to have 50% black managers and 30% women by 1999. At present 38% of managers are black and 11% of middle to senior managers are women. Although 79% of public servants are black, only 38% at the level of director […]

THURSDAY, 5.00PM: The South African government need not revise its growth estimates, despite last week’s market turmoil, Finance Minister Trevor Manuel said on Thursday. Nor is there any question of revising its 4% budget deficit target “We don’t see the need for any panic in respect of the fiscal targets we have set,” he said. […]

THURSDAY, 5PM: The Rev Ndabaningi Sithole, father of the armed struggle against white rule in Zimbabwe, is the latest veteran of the liberation war to complain that the government is holding back on promised benefits. Sithole, now 77, led the Zimbabwe African National Union in the early 1960s and 1970s. He said this week he […]

THURSDAY, 10.00AM: THE Department of Public Works announced yesterday that it was to be streamlined to less than half its size over the next five years. However, its community-based public works programme would be extended for at least 15 years. At the launch of a white paper on public works, Minister Jeff Radebe said that […]