MONDAY, 9.00AM ECONOMISTS reacted positively to Reserve Bank figures released at the weekend which showed that foreign exchange reserves had risen to R14,4-billion at the end of April, up 9,9% from the end of March. More details, including the breakdown between gold and forex will only be made available this Thursday. But the bank said […]
MONDAY, 9.00AM TREVOR MANUEL’S finance department has approached the major commercial banks for their views on the lifting of exchange controls and on capital requirements. The department wants commercial banks to buy and sell government bonds rather than the Reserve Bank, but has set conditions, such as a willingness by the banks to buy and […]
MONDAY, 11.00AM: THE Gauteng Lions continued their losing run with a crushing 47-9 hammering at the hands of Waikato on Saturday, all the while keeping up the haemorrhage of players to injury as stand-in skipper Ian Macdonald and centre Japie Mulder fell by the wayside. The Lions are now left with a rather threadbare side […]
MONDAY, 3.30PM: WESTERN Cape police today expressed the fear that the ongoing war between Cape Flats gangsters and People Against Gangesterism and Drugs vigilantes could lead to a majow bloodbath. Since Pagad vigilantes murdered druglord Rashaad Staggie in a gruesome lynching last August, a campaign of tit-for-tat attacks has developed between vigilantes and alleged gangsters. […]
MONDAY, 5.30PM: THE Moldenhauer commission of inquiry into irregularly issued drivers’ licences in Mpumalanga today heard that traffic officers accused of issuing as many as 300 fraudulent drivers’ licences a day at the Kabokweni testing station burnt down the centre in 1995 to destroy documentary evidence of their activities. Mpumalanga chief traffic inspector Francois Coombs […]
MONDAY, 11.00AM AIR ZIMBABWE finally has a new chief executive from today, a year after the previous CE was fired by Robert Mugabe. Irish airline expert Brendon Donohoe, who has worked previously in Africa, takes over for two years following an agreement reached between the troubled national airline and Air Consult International (ACI) of Dublin, […]
FRIDAY, 3.30PM: AN episode of the British investigative TV programme The Cook Report, due to be shown on May 6, lifts the lid on SA hunting operations which charge large sums to set up kills for foreign hunters involving drugged or confined lions. The programme makes several allegations, including that: SA game farmers are breeding […]
THE ROAD AHEAD by Bill Gates (Penguin Audiobooks, R79,95, abridged) Bill Gates’s manifesto on how computers will shape the future is arresting and thought-provoking. He recalls his first childhood encounter with a computer, and forsees computers and television merging. Gates believes the coming technological revolution will change the way we think, learn, shop and work. […]
What does and what does not constitute euthanasia? It is a question of intent which will be determined by law,writes Selma Browde THE discussion paper recently released by the Law Commission for public comment is an excellent document. Unfortunately the document is entitled Euthanasia and the Artificial Preservation of Life, whereas the draft Bill, which […]
Satirist Pieter-Dirk Uys in The 15-Minute Interview. By Charl Blignaut CB: We’re not late are we? PDU: Nee skat. Haai, this place [Le Samovar in Hyde Park, Johannesburg] is wonderful. It reminds me of New York. Have you been to the Russian Tea House in New York? CB: No. When do you go to New […]