Thebe Investment Company pioneered a new South African corporate culture but black business still has far to go, writes Charlene Smith Seven years ago there were no black companies listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange; indeed there was not a single black corporation. Pondering this, Vusi Khanyile, then finance head of the African National Congress, […]

FRIDAY, 10.30AM: KWAZULU-Natal Finance MEC Ben Ngubane on Thursday told the provincial legislature that the Ulundi government is drafting legislation that will lead to department heads being jailed for spending beyond their budgets. Ngubane said that he also intends setting up a commission of inquiry to establish the reasons for the province’s financial problems and […]

The Generations leading actor has `committed suicide’, write Charl Blignaut and Janet Smith This week, notorious advertising executive Hilda Letlalo unceremoniously committed suicide in an SABC studio – and viewers of South Africa’s most popular locally produced soap opera won’t get a chance to see her demise. That’s because Vinoliah Mashego, the award- winning TV […]

Owen Bowcott Detectives in Sydney this week ruled out auto-erotic sex games as the cause of rock star Michael Hutchence’s death, but said they were awaiting toxicology tests to determine whether he had taken drugs or alcohol. As the INXS lead singer’s distraught British fiance, Paula Yates, flew to Australia with their 16-month-old daughter, the […]

processors Steve Shipside It’s a depressingly familiar scenario. Your film comes back with 10 underdeveloped pictures, 10 overdeveloped, three shots of your thumb, and four cases of red-eye that make close family members look like Zoltan, Hound of Dracula. Precisely that disappointment is driving the digital photography market, says Steve Hoffenberg, director of the Digital […]

Neil Manthorp : Cricket South Africa’s cricketers have both endured and enjoyed a very, very long week in Perth since their arrival last Friday. The veterans of the 1994 tour, and the 1992 World Cup, wasted little time in reacquainting themselves with the delights of southern hemisphere hospitality while the Oz rookies discovered just what […]

Closing Valkenberg hospital would involve a sacrifice by the people least able to bear it, writes Lin Sampson Valkenberg: one alights rather than arrives on its pulsating terrain, as if on another planet. It is an eccentric place, a hovering satellite of hope and despair, dishevelled in part, but with pretty gardens that stretch down […]

Drum magazine agony aunt and executive editor, Liz Khumalo, aka Sis Dolly, in the 15-minute interview. By Charl Blignaut Charl Blignaut: You don’t know how long I’ve wanted to interview you for. I read Dear Dolly every single week. Liz Khumalo: Oh, that’s so good to hear. CB: For how long have you been Sis […]

In a discussion paper for the ANC conference, Pallo Jordan advocates greater involvement with the black bourgeoisie, writes Charlene Smith `No serious person could pretend that South Africa today is not a country of far greater opportunity than it was 10 years ago” – but should the African National Congress deliberately foster the emergence of […]