You can negotiate with your bank to get the best deal on your bond or car financing, writes Belinda Beresford Waking up after the night before, that faint hint of an ache in your forehead is a disagreeable reminder of the pain to come as the hangover hits with full force. Its the same wincing […]

Tangeni Amupadhi The Truth and Reconciliation Commission has decided that people responsible for human rights atrocities in African National Congress detention camps will not have to testify publicly about their deeds. Dumisa Ntsebeza, head of the commission’s investigative unit, said this week public hearings on Quatro and other camps will not fit into the commission’s […]

Charl Blignaut On show in Johannesburg Should you happen to walk all the way to the back of the large, depressingly cold main entrance level of the Civic Theatre in Johannesburg; and then should you stumble down a couple of stairs and take a turn to the right; there you will come upon a tiny […]

Richard Tomlinson outlines a truly African scenario for Johannesburg in the 21st century Mayivuke, an inner-city vision and development strategy for Johannesburg, was launched with fanfare and great expectations a year ago. But its vision was vague and unrealistic, probably because it was not underpinned by an examination of economic and social trends. Business leaders […]

take back land Mercedes Sayagues They trickled in, women with bundles on their heads, men on bicycles. In small groups they camped on four commercial farms in Marondera, 70km east of Harare. They arrived on June 17, and today there are perhaps up to 1 000 men and women from 20 villages in the dirt-poor […]

Ronald Suresh Roberts SHTETL: A HISTORY OF A SMALL TOWN AND AN EXTINGUISHED WORLD by Eva Hoffman (Chatto &Windus, R135) ECHOES OF A NATIVE LAND by Serge Schmemann (Little, Brown, R160) In her poetic autobiography Lost in Translation: Life in a New Language (1989), Eva Hoffman tells of her Jewish familys flight from wartime Poland […]

Adam Levin tunes into aRt, SABC3s long- awaited arts and culture programme, for a touch of spine-chilling cultural diversity You wanted democratic processes. Well you got em. Mid-last year, when budget cuts snatched The Works and Arts Unlimited off the air, Auckland Park embarked on the unprecedented saga of selecting an external production house to […]

Fiona Macleod Animal-welfare groups were scrambling madly this week to prevent Roy Plath, a central figure in the “canned” lion-hunting scandal, from exporting 17 lions to a hunting operation in Mozambique. Plath has sold the lions to a professional hunter, Andr Booysen and his father-in-law, Dick de Villiers, who own a farm called Pandane in […]

Donna Block After years of fat margins and record profits, South African banks are now crying poverty. In the wake of the recent volatility in the worlds financial markets, commercial banks have seen their profits squeezed by a plunging rand and the Reserve Banks desperate attempts to stave off international speculators by hiking the repo […]

Marthali Brand Moveable feast Everyone knows the restorative qualities of a hearty soup. Even a cup of instant soup can revive me after a hard day in front of the computer, or a tough workout at the gym. And a hot vegetable concoction served with a slice of buttered wholewheat bread can warm up any […]