Depending who you listen to, Internet commerce has either flopped or is booming. Either way, there are South Africans who are making a lot of money from it, reports Arthur Goldstuck IT is the numbers, in the end, that impress, and there are enough of those to show that the Internet has become big business […]

The hard men chosen for the Lions squad arrive on Sunday, and the Springboks are looking particularly vulnerable at the moment RUGBY:Steve Morris THERE must surely be the realisation that, as was the case when this country was first re-admitted to the international arena five years ago, our rugby has again suffered the type of […]

Despite a drop in import duties, do not expect to see a decrease in the price of CDs, writes Glynis O’Hara IMPORT duties have dropped significantly since the Budget, but most CD retailers don’t intend to pass the saving on to consumers just yet. Customs and Excise in Pretoria says import duties have been reduced […]

NICHOLAS WROE meets a wary member of `this Scottish literary renaissance thing’ ALAN WARNER was a driver for British Rail in Edinburgh when his first novel, Morvern Callar, was accepted for publication. “They’d just phoned me at 1am asking me to work at eight the same morning,” he says. “So I went in, told the […]

Rebel leader Laurent Kabila is making economic decisions that could impoverish Zaire further. Stefaans Brmmer reports from Lubumbashi LAURENT KABILA’S alliance has shown itself adept at waging war, but signs are it has a lot to learn about managing the peace. Erratic decisions by the rebel leader’s young “government” have eroded outsider confidence. His actions […]

THE accelerated movement of hundreds of thousands of people into the cities from the rural areas, from other provinces and from the rest of Africa, is transforming South Africa. Poverty-stricken squatter camps have long been a feature of our cities, but the urban sprawl of Gauteng, which has become one of the fastest-growing emerging cities […]

Africa is not a romantic motherland for black Americans, but a cruel despotic continent, writes Keith Richburg I WATCHED the dead float down a river in Tanzania. It’s one of those apocryphal stories you always hear coming out of Africa, meant to demonstrate the savagery of “the natives”. Babies being pulled off their mothers’ backs […]

After decades on the mines, a Mozambican man has been offered R1 777,54 for long service. He is one of thousands left without old-age security, writes Ferial Haffajee FORTY-EIGHT years ago, Andre Muianga joined the throng of Mozambican men leaving their homes in Xai-Xai to work in South Africa’s booming gold mines. On January 20 […]

Julie Barker AT Western Platinum Mine in Mooi Nooi, near the Magaliesberg, a group of mine employees is rehearsing a play. They are putting the final touches on Shortcuts. The group is called Thuto ke Lesedi, which means Education is Light. Formed just over a year ago, Thuto ke Lesedi has, with the help of […]

Ann Eveleth BLACK students attending school in a working-class Afrikaans suburb of Pretoria West should “go back to Soweto”, said white parents standing guard outside Elandspoort High School this week after three days of racial clashes which saw two students hospitalised with bat and knife wounds. By Thursday morning the school was still struggling to […]