MONDAY, 10.00AM: A DRAFT World Bank study claims South African unemployment rates are largely the fault of what the bank considers the high level of wages paid to black workers. The study, now being circulated in relevant government departments, also warns that the Basic Conditions of Employment Act will increase costs in industries already racked […]

MONDAY, 10AM: A new World Trade Organisation report shows South Africa brought in more anti-dumping measures last year than any other country, a quarter of them targetted at China. Among locally-manufactured items protected against imports from China are textiles, forks, garden equipment and flat glass, while PVC manufacturers here are protected against Brazilian, Taiwainese, French, […]

South African photography has reframed itself in the Nineties, writes Charl Blignaut Had you taken a stroll through Johannesburg’s art galleries five years ago you would most likely have come across precious few shows devoted to photography. And those that were would almost certainly have comprised the kind of slick, dangerous, Pulitzer Prize-winning news photographs […]

Simple, stark and clever This stark advertisement recently netted a Young Creatives award for the Net#Work ad agency’s Graeme Jenner and Paulo Grippa at the Cannes-Lions advertising awards. Pitted against young advertising executives from around the world, the two chose this simple curriculum vitae idea to convey the message that the rapid smashing of the […]

Jonathan Glancey : Architecture Where on earth is this momentous stair, these vertiginous walls angled in on us like a scene from Metropolis or the Cabinet of Dr Caligari? Somewhere between heaven and hell, reached through a doorway in the heart of what was until so very recently East Berlin. This is one of the […]

Fiona Macleod:A Second Look During the debate in the past fortnight about whether the resumption of the ivory trade has led to an increase in poaching of elephants, both the Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism, Pallo Jordan, and his deputy, Peter Mokaba, have come out in favour of “sustainable utilisation” of natural resources as […]

Admitted to a clinic with a broken nose, Minas Michael left `a vegetable’. His parents, however, refused to give up hope. Angella Johnson reports A neglected basketball net hangs forlornly over the garage door of Minas Michael’s home. It was here that the teenager practised the shots which made him a Transvaal provincial player. Today […]

FRIDAY, 1.30PM: THE National Education, Health and Allied Worker’s Union said on Thursday that the national health budget’s deficit of R1,5-billion could mean thousands of employees will soon lose their jobs. The health department is apparently considering outsourcing its catering, cleaning and laundry and security services, which may involve retrenching 11 000 employees. Meanwhile, the […]

Sauces from the Far East are tickling taste buds around the world. Michael Fitzpatrick sifts the superior beans from the has-beens As taste buds begin responding favourably once again to the taste of the Far East, this time the preferred flavour enhancer is, thankfully, not monosodium glutamate but soy sauce. In Japan there’s not a […]