Shaun Harris Lack of housing is a major issue facing South Africa. But it’s estimated that more than a third of the workforce is caught in the trap of earning between R1 000 and R5 000 a month – too much to qualify for the government’s R16 000 housing subsidy, but too low to get […]

M&G reporter Women and children are being touted as the latest beneficiaries of the ethical investing market with the launch this week of African Harvest’s Women’s Initiative Fund (WIF). Sixty percent of the 5% upfront fees paid by investors and 30% of the annual 1,5% management fee will be distributed to community organisations. In addition, […]

A new villain, spectacular chases, suave as ever and heavily armed with double entendres – Bond is back, says Philip French Pierce Brosnan, the screen’s fifth 007, makes his third appearance as the playboy hero of the Western world in The World Is Not Enough. He was two years old when James Bond sprang from […]

Stefaans Brmmer The Cabinet is expected to “bless” the construction of a controversial new nuclear power station in January, but environmentalists have threatened legal action against the government if it gets the nod. Eskom confirms it will be briefing the Cabinet on the project in January, and says it hopes this will result in a […]

Stephen Gray Review of the week In 1981, Mbongeni Ngema himself, clandestinely in the alcove of what is now the Gramadoelas Restaurant at Johannesburg’s Market Theatre, launched the wonderful protest cabaret, Woza Albert!. He had little in the world except talent to back it, but was going to go everywhere. One of the characters he […]

Alex Sudheim Pavement may well be the rock’n’roll darlings of the postmodern age, but as they themselves sing: “It’s a brand new era and it feels great/It’s a brand new era but it came too late.” The open-endedness of these lyrics is very much in keeping with the band’s oeuvre, which can be read as […]

Michael Walker It must constitute one of the most spectacular gestures of faith in the history of ex-offenders. At 4pm on Wednesday, in the ambassador suite of third division Darlington football club, the club chair George Reynolds – a one- time safe-blower with four years in prison on his CV – was handed the most […]

Barry Streek The number of regular farm workers in South Africa decreased by 2% a year over the past five financial years, but the number of seasonal workers increased slightly, Minister of Agriculture and Land Affairs Thoko Didiza has disclosed. She warned that there are difficulties in obtaining reliable statistics on farms, including commercial farms. […]

Occasionally you happen upon a gem of television that makes all the other dross so much more insignificant. Such was the case in a half-hour documentary on e.tv last week, called JG Strijdom is Very, Very Dead: a faultlessly ironic examination of life around the gargantuan bronze head of “The Lion of the North”, which […]

Philippa Garson CLASS STRUGGLE As protestors converged on Seattle to rant their opposition to the effects of globalisation on vulnerable communities this week, similar mutterings of dissent were being echoed at a small but significant gathering of South Africans. Entitled Construction Site: Good Governance for New South Africa – A Quest to Reinvent or Strengthen […]