FRIDAY, 5.45PM: THE Johannesburg Stock Exchange ended slightly firmer on Friday following a good performance by industrials. By the close the JSE the financial index had slid seven points to 11 209, and the gold index was likewise seven points weaker at 881, as the gold price failed to hold recent gains. The industrial index […]

Ferial Haffajee and Janet Smith The figures alone are enough to make you square-eyed. Together seven bidders for this country’s first national private and free television service have laid out R2.1- million to apply for a licence and each claims to have already spent between R2 and R3-million to finance the biggest media race yet […]

The South African Mint is certainly coining it, reports Belinda Beresford Lost down the back of sofas, stored in glass jars, hiding at the bottom of pockets or simply discarded, South Africans are very careless with their coins and about one billion new coins are needed each year to replace those removed from circulation. This […]

Between Whitewater and “fornigate”, President Bill Clinton will probably not be remembered for his honesty or integrity. But he did get one thing right. Remember the slogan, “It’s the economy, stupid”? Bandied about when he first hit the campaign trail, back in 1992, he has certainly made good his claim. The economy is going great […]

Why do we go on forking out for insurance, asks Rich Chanelle from London I give away about R8 000 a year. I don’t give it to good causes or charities. I don’t even give it to people that I like! I give R8 000 away, every year, to tycoons and multicorporations. Why not give […]

Dan Atkinson explains why the diamond continues to sparkle around the world Ask any businessperson to forecast the outlook for a product which last year saw sales dive 20% in the Far East, which meant extensive smuggling and selling on illicit markets around the world and which even saw that product enjoy its own health […]

Barbara Ludman : Moveable feast Police say the rate of serious crime is falling, even if you’re staring a handgun in the face. And maybe they’re right. Who knows? Will tomorrow bring a better job, a retrenchment, a ”right-sizing”? Will the schools see out the year? Will the prosecutors get their overtime pay? Will the […]

THURSDAY, 12.30PM: A TASK team from the National Economic, Development and Labour Council (Nedlac) is on the threshold of finalising a draft social plan agreement to minimise the socio-economic effects of job losses on communities, local economies and the country as a whole. Yet to be finalised, the agreement stipulates a range of measures to […]

THURSDAY, 5.45PM: SHARES bounded forward on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange on Thursday, building on Wednesday’s record high on the financial index. Dealers said the trade was some of the best since last October. A flood of investor rands into the market signalled a return of confidence in stocks and the economy. All the indices went […]

THURSDAY, 4.15PM: POLITICAL violence between the Kalenjin supporters of Kenyan president Daniel arap Moi and Kikuyu supporters of opposition parties has nearly reached Nakuru, Kenya’s fourth largest town. Fifteen houses belonging to members of the Kikuyu tribe were torched during the night at a farm south-west of Nakuru, Father Stephen Mbugua said, and one person […]