Clive Simpkins=20 True marketing expertise takes years to develop.=20 Academic theory is often very different from the reality=20 of business. =20 Astonishingly, almost as soon as a superb base of such=20 expertise is in place in a corporation, the pool of=20 talent or the individual talented marketer is retired.=20 In some regions of South Africa […]

Zimbabwe’s farmers are suffering under punishing=20 interest rates. Lewis Machipisa in Harare reports=20 Two years ago it was drought, a freak of nature, that=20 crippled Zimbabwe’s agricultural sector. Now the=20 problems besetting the industry’s recovery are entirely=20 man-made. =20 At 32 percent, the country’s interest rates are=20 punishingly high, undermining efforts to resuscitate=20 farming, the […]

Eddie Webster suggests that Wits University academics would do well to look at other African universities for some hints on how to handle change IN his insightful article on his alma mater (“Wits — Barometer of Change”, Weekly Mail & Guardian 24-30), Anton Harber concludes that Wits “has become a model of poor change management”. […]

Critical Consumer Pat Sidley ON April 1, consumers looking for a bargain in cellular telephones will receive a jolt. And later in the year, having signed up for bargains this week, they will get yet another jolt when tariffs rise. This is because the two networks (MTN and Vodacom) are cutting back on the size […]

Two recently listed, black-controlled firms=20 may not meet the stock exchange’s new requirements,=20 reports Jacques Magiolo=20 The listing of Real Africa Investments (RAI) and Real=20 Africa Holdings (RAH) is a significant boost for black=20 empowerment in South Africa, but the group’s complicated=20 organisational structure and its diverse range of target=20 markets are not expected to […]

Native tongue Bafana Khumalo I am sitting in an apartment in Hillbrow and opposite me is a white man dressed in a hood that is similar to that of some medieval monk. He hands me a bunch of metal coins with holes in them and tells me to shake them in my hands and throw […]

Ann Eveleth The Inkatha Freedom Party’s 30-day deadline for international mediational on constitutional issues runs out next week and so far the party sees no progress on the issue. Unless some agreement is reached by Wednesday, party leaders say they will be forced to walk out of the Constitutional Assembly. IFP constitutional affairs spokesman Sipho […]

CINEMA: Bafana Khumalo=20 SOWETO GREEN is one of those new South African hot=20 potatoes which make newspaper editors want to send black=20 reviewers to critique the film as opposed to white=20 reviewers, lest whities hate it and be accused of=20 racism. This is because the scriptwriter, Mfundi Vundla,=20 is a very well connected brother who […]

Chris Louw HUSTLER shop owner Eugene Marais looked forlorn in his almost empty premises this week. Boxes with deflated “love dolls” and a scattering of erect rubber dildos were all that remained in his sex shop in Sunnyside, Pretoria, after a second police raid in six weeks. Marais’ shop featured in the Weekly Mail & […]

Moveable Feast=20 Chris Louw=20 NEXT to the Apies River in Sunnyside, in a quaint little=20 art village known as Oeverzicht, actor Tjaart Potgieter=20 set up house last year. His homely restaurant, in a=20 restored dwelling dating back to the days of Paul=20 Kruger, has already won a reputation as one of the top=20 visiting-places in […]