Barbara Ludman : Moveable feast Once, a couple of decades ago, there was a vegetarian restaurant in Hunter Street in Yeoville, Johannesburg. I thought it absolutely terrible, with an ambience that spoke of “pulses”, a non-foodie term for good stuff like chilli beans and lemon dahl. Besides, nothing was ever hot enough. Long after the […]

A new government curriculum plan is likely to leave provinces with less money to spend on teachers, writes Andy Duffy The government is planning to force provinces to spend a hefty slice of their education budgets on initiatives such as the new school curriculum – a move likely to trigger more retrenchments of teachers. The […]

Madeleine Wackernagel : Taking stock Fresh from its $16-billion rescue mission in Thailand, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is liberally dishing out advice to other countries to prevent similar debacles elsewhere. Currency crises have a tendency to be contagious. But in the case of South Africa, it is being over-zealous. Take the forward dollar market. […]

The British Broadcasting Corporation’s coverage of Diana, Princess of Wales’s death was the longest session of live coverage in its history, reports Peta Thornycroft When the telephone rang at 12.45am, Peter Knowles was very deeply asleep. Semi- comatose, he thought he was still on his week’s holiday in Newcastle. Only after he had opened his […]

FRIDAY, 5.00PM ZIMBABWE’S Supreme Court delivered a stunning blow to President Robert Mugabe’s ruling Zanu(PF) party today, by preventing the party from taking an entire state subsidy intended to encourage multi-party democracy. For the past five years, the Zanu(PF) dominated parliament has voted a sum of Z$225-million (about R94 million) to itself, on the grounds […]

High interest rates will not protect the rand long term, writes Charles Millward In his governor’s address in 1995, Chris Stals referred to certain economists who were calling for a substantial devaluation of the rand; such a devaluation would be, he said, no more than a panacea given that South Africa’s problems of competitiveness were […]

Marion Edmunds Government intelligence services are investigating reports that South African- produced weapons have been recovered on both sides of the conflict in Sudan. The National Conventional Arms Control Committee (NCACC) – the committee that regulates South African arms exports – denied this week that the government had authorised arms sales to the Sudanese government. […]

Ferial Haffajee South Africa’s biggest non-governmental organisations (NGOs) have launched a campaign to push for the restructuring of apartheid debt. Led by the NGO Coalition, they want to egg government on to make changes to debt payments to free up revenue for development. “There is real anxiety about the reconstruction and development programme among NGOs,” […]

Gwen Ansell A father who banned you from playing, and a childhood accident that lopped off the tips of a couple of fingers don’t sound like a promising start for a jazz musician. Bheki Mseleku in tomorrow’s (Saturday, September 6) final Joy of Jazz concert at the Pretoria State Theatre proves how remarkably you can […]

The energy ministry proposes to stop exports to boost local employment, writes Mungo Soggot The Minister of Minerals and Energy, Penuell Maduna, wants to cut or stop altogether the export of diamonds from South Africa – a strategy that would severely threaten the survival of the De Beers diamond cartel. The minister’s special adviser on […]