Ferial Haffajee Trade unions are the training ground of a different type of MBA graduate. Like those with MBAs, unionists are all- rounders who are “well-versed in finance, work organisation and conflict resolution”, says Bobby Maree, programme co-ordinator of the Development Institute for Training, Support and Education for Labour (Ditsela). Years of negotiations have made […]

Gillian Farquhar A MAGAZINE for men that sells better than GQ and Esquire … not likely? But true … Men’s Health hit South African news-stands last week and is “the most popular men’s magazine of the decade”, says Jeffrey Morgan, its United States and worldwide publisher who was in Johannesburg last week for the magazine’s […]

consultants DESPITE employing 125 000 public servants, the Northern Province wants to set aside R790-million this year to pay for consultants and “special services”. The province’s Premier, Ngoaka Ramathlodi, said this week that its army of public officials had been “mostly trained to clerical level” and that the consultants were vital to ensure its administration […]

THEATRE: Andrew Wilson IN transporting Henrik Ibsen’s 19th-century naturalist drama An Enemy of the People to a local context, Wits University’s chairman of African languages, Professor Nhlanhla Maake’s adaptation is, in his own words, “a prostitute”. But it’s a hooker with no sell-by date because Ibsen’s timeless themes of power, corruption and the quest for […]

The first details of a shock report of Zimbabwe’s government troops’ atrocities in camp Bhalagwe and elsewhere has emerged despite Mugabe’s curtain of silence, writes David Beresford One of the untold horrors of Africa – the atrocities perpetrated by Robert Mugabe’s troops in the southern province of Matabeleland after independence -can finally be told. The […]

SOCCER:Julian Drew HAVING travelled with Bafana Bafana to Pointe Noire to experience the inexplicable outbreak of “Congo Fever” which saw the locals’ confidant 2-0 predictions transformed eerily into reality, it was quite clear that there were “darker” forces at play. A simple stroll around the murkier corners of the local market and a once-over of […]

In an extract from his new book, Golf Dreams, acclaimed American novelist John Updike celebrates the grace and frustrations of an addictive game GOLF:John Updike A CAMPAIGN is afoot to bring back the caddie to American golf courses. In Golf Digest and elsewhere you can read of the many benefits: it is better for the […]

The Semenya commission recommends senior Northern Province officials should go. Marion Edmunds reports THE initial report by the Semenya commission into financial irregularities in the Northern Province recommends a purge of senior officials – many of them close associates of Premier Ngoako Ramathlodi. Senior African National Congress members in the province say the report – […]

Tim Radford in London ASTRONOMERS have discovered a huge fountain of antimatter at the heart of the galaxy. The jet – from a mystery source – extends for 3 000 light years above the Milky Way. Antimatter is a particle with the same characteristics as normal matter, except that it has an opposite electrical charge. […]

Opinions differ strongly about the effects of South Africa’s crime wave on foreign investment. Miepje Commandeur and Helma van de Vondevoort report LOCAL representatives of South Africa’s leading trade partners regularly suffer from crime, a snap survey by the Mail & Guardian shows. Staff members of foreign embassies and chambers of commerce are often at […]