Demutualisation hopes have lost their shine in the wake of turmoil in the financial markets, writes Belinda Beresford You could be forgiven for confusing the huff and puff over demutualisation with the sound of the gravy train pulling in for a lucky few. Since last year, the financial world has been talking up the conversion […]

Tony Twine According to the cautionary tale, Goldilocks may well have been the archetypal consumer who fell foul of a bear trend. In search of that elusive economic entity, a free lunch (or was it breakfast?), she unleashed a sequence of events which left her at the mercy of the bears – quite a depressing […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Maseru | Thursday 10.00pm. LESOTHO public servants who have stayed away from government offices in Maseru for three days due to pressure from opposition parties were ordered back to work on Friday. An announcement on Radio Lesotho from Prime Minister Pakalitha Mosisili’s office said public servants should return to work at once. The […]

Chiara Carter Bitterness lingering after the choice of Gerald Morkel over populist Peter Marais to replace Hernus Kriel as leader of the National Party and premier in the Western Cape is likely to resurface at the party’s regional conference next week. Marais is understood to have been pressured by grassroots supporters to contest the elections, […]

Chris McGreal : Spending It This month Rwanda launched a national lottery to raise much-needed revenue. But this is a numbers game which blends aspects of a good old-fashioned lottery – where luck reigns supreme – with betting on the horses. The scheme was born of desperation. The government had tried scratch cards as a […]

Brenda Atkinson : On show in Johannesburg Looking at two Johannesburg exhibitions recently, it occurred to me that the position of the art critic – and of some artists – is increasingly one of impossibility. This is because one of the ironies of globalisation, transnationalism, and all those other terms that would suggest the dissolution […]

Ann Eveleth Six northern KwaZulu-Natal police officers received jail sentences this week for torturing an African National Congress- aligned community activist and his relatives. Magistrate Amanda Venter handed down the ruling in a tiny civil courtroom in the Empangeni Magistrate’s Court on Tuesday, nearly two-and-a-half years after members of the Mtubatuba-based public order policing unit […]

Gouglas Rushkoff : Online Is the Internet a source of psychological problems, or does it provide a cure? For every book or article I read about the detrimental effects of spending time online, I see another listing sites where people can turn for psychological counselling. I receive many letters from psychologists asking about the effect […]

Peter Dickson A scam dubbed “Aircon” is the latest corruption scandal to rock the Eastern Cape legislature. On Tuesday, Eastern Cape legislature speaker Gugile Nkwinti announced that the secretary of the legislature, Connie de Beer, and finance director Bej Fatuse have been forced to take leave, pending investigation into allegations that they illegally converted R300 […]

Peter Frost In a union which typifies the new reality of economic pressure on the arts as well as calls for broadening of artistic horizons, members of Gauteng’s State Theatre Ballet and the Cape Town City Ballet (CTCB) will join forces on Saturday night at the Nico Opera House for the first time. Dancers from […]