Sechaba ka’Nkosi Pressure by the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) has led to a decision by the African National Congress to smooth out differences with its communist and worker allies before the much-awaited Jobs Summit this week. The ANC took a strategic dive on macro-economic fundamentals and showed willingness to refocus its transformation […]

The TRC has found that torture and executions occurred in ANC camps in exile. Some of those targeted were killed as a result of bad leadership, jealousies and paranoia, writes Charlene Smith Chris Hani was once sentenced to death by Umkhonto weSizwe’s (MK) high command in Tanzania for putting forward the grievances of MK cadres. […]

Belinda Beresford Unit trusts are the cloned computers of the financing world – they’re everywhere, they offer opportunities to people who would not be able to make a pedigree investment and they can prove an expensive mistake. One advantage of unit trusts is you can spread investment over time by buying monthly. This gives you […]

Wonder Hlongwa The growth of loan sharking to a R10- billion business in South African cities has prompted the Department of Trade and Industry to intervene and regulate the business. The proposed regulations, to be published by Minister of Trade and Industry Alec Erwin later this month, will be incorporated in a revision of the […]

year David Shapshak Desmond Tutu’s personal story of the time he spent as head of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) has been sold to publishers Random House and is scheduled to be in print by late next year. The deal was confirmed this week by Stephen Johnson, the head of Random House in South […]

Thomas Olver THE MOMENT by Stefanus Stephanus Nel (Mortem Post) The realm of “experimental writing” is littered with the burnt-out corpses of many a poor volume of poetry or stories. So it is gratifying to discover new colour (albeit it black and white) in the local literary landscape. Stefanus Stephanus Nel’s booklet is such a […]

As the Japanese Grand Prix looms, two teams will be aching to celebrate victory -in their own separate ways. Maurice Hamilton reports If Michael Schumacher brings the world drivers’ championship to Ferrari this weekend, the town of Maranello in northern Italy will go berserk – even in the early hours of Sunday when the results […]

In his first column for Smart Money, David Gleason surveys gold and wonders why Barlow sold investment company PGM for so little Is this a good time to buy gold shares? The evidence supporting the view that gold may be on the verge of a better period (not fantastic, you understand, just modestly better than […]

Howard Barrell The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) was ready to declare FW de Klerk “an accessory to gross human rights violations” before the former president brought an urgent court action to stop this conclusion being carried in the TRC’s final report, released in Pretoria on Thursday. The commission had provisionally concluded that De Klerk’s […]

Cameron Duodu: LETTER FROM THE NORTH She never allowed the leaders of the Soviet Union to forget what horrible creatures they were. And she plotted, with her “virtual boyfriend”, Ronald Reagan, to bring down the Soviets’ “evil empire”. To listen to her waxing lyrical about the “values of the free world” you would have thought […]