Low costs have attracted investors to Britain, but at the price of quality growth, argues Larry Elliott ONE of comedy’s finest moments is the scene in Fawlty Towers in which Basil flails his broken-down car with the branch from a tree. The year was 1975, the car was British and the moment seemed to sum […]

Palaeontologists have found an 18-million- year-old tooth in Namaqualand, writes Lesley Cowling. Is this proof that Eden extended as far as South Africa? FEW people taking a stroll along a beach would notice this small, white, pebble-like object. A dentist should recognise it as a tooth, says French palaeontologist Dr Brigitte Senut. “And if he […]

Playwright JONATHAN HARVEY also wrote the screenplay for Beautiful Thing. It’s been called a fantasy, but here he argues that it could be true … PEOPLE think of Beautiful Thing as my first play, when in fact it’s my seventh. But though they’re technically wrong, they are right in a way – it was the […]

body Mail & Guardian reporter SEVERAL senior military men, including former Civilian Co-operation Bureau (CCB) operatives, will receive subpoenas in the next three weeks ordering them to appear before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. While most former policemen implicated in “dirty tricks” operations are busy preparing submissions in pursuit of indemnity from prosecution, few members […]

The investigation into playboy Paul Ekon’s alleged gold scam deepens. He is also said to have offered the ANC `tiny little guns’, reports Stefaans Brmmer NEW details have emerged of gold syndicate suspect Paul Ekon’s association with African National Congress leaders – including his alleged loan of a handgun to Thabo Mbeki – but ANC […]

Graham Hopwood in Windhoek THE Namibian government’s failure to release the whole of a report on official corruption has underlined concerns that the authorities here are unwilling to tackle graft within their own ranks. Prime Minister Hage Geingob tabled the final part of the report of the Frank Commission probe into governnment irregularities in Parliament […]

Newcomer Facts & Fiction is taking on the industry giant with a formal application to the Competition Board over claims of unfair practices, writes Max Gebhardt THE on-going row between book giant CNA Gallo and the newcomer to the industry, Facts & Fiction, is set to flare up again, with the news that Facts & […]

Judith Edstrom I WOULD like to address some of the perceptions and misconceptions about the World Bank in South Africa that have surfaced recently, at times with a degree of emotional fervour. First, what is the World Bank and what are we doing in South Africa? The World Bank is a co-operative bank owned by […]

Andy Duffy Transnet has uncovered fraud and theft thought to have been costing subsidiary South African Airways’s (SAA) duty-free operation at least R5-million a year – more than 10% of the operation’s annual sales. The group’s internal audit team paid Johannesburg-based private investigators R470 000 to undertake the six-month investigation into the operation. Its report […]