expectations Ian Black The 40-plus leaders of the Commonwealth flying into Edinburgh this week could be forgiven for wondering what to expect: it is 20 years since Britain hosted a summit of the ex-colonial club. Yet the Queen has never addressed the biennial event, let alone made the opening speech. Tony Blair’s modernising government has […]

Andy Duffy A senior police official is being investigated for his role in securing lucrative Angolan diamond deals for controversial businessman Vito Palazzolo. Andre Lincoln, head of the Cape Town-based presidential investigations task unit, flew to Angola in May, on a trip arranged by Palazzolo. Safety and Security Minister Sydney Mufamadi and National Police Commissioner […]

Sankie Mthembi-Mahanyele clearly knew of irregularities around the Motheo deal, write Mungo Soggot and Justin Arenstein The government documents at the heart of the Motheo scandal have finally been made available and they indicate that the case against the Minister of Housing, Sankie Mthembi-Mahanyele, is even stronger than previously thought. The documents show that – […]

As Nelson Mandela and his party of South Africans made their way along the notoriously bumpy road between Cairo and Tripoli this week, there were grounds for feelings of some pride in the presidency. Among all the achievements of his long life, that for which the president is most likely to be remembered is his […]

MORE HEIST ARRESTS ANOTHER three people were arrested on Wednesday in connection with the weekend’s R18-million cash depot heist in Pretoria, bringing to six the number of people in custody, police said on Thursday. The three, family members of one of the three former Umkhonto we Sizwe cadres arrested earlier in connection with the military-style […]

South Africa’s largest radio station is to get some really stiff competition from challengers for a commercial licence, reports Suzy Bell For the first time in almost four decades, the country’s biggest radio station is facing competition. In Durban next week, Ukhozi FM’s domination of the huge Zulu-speaking market will be challenged in KwaZulu-Natal’s hearings […]

A repeat of the 1987 stock markets crash may not be imminent, but there are danger signs, warns Tony Dye In 1988, I wrote about the 1987 stock market crash on Wall Street and in the City of London. Here is an extract, predicting that people would not learn from their mistakes in the financial […]

THURSDAY, 11.00AM: SA BREWERIES is in another spat with its only significant rival in the region, Namibian Breweries, winning a court order in Pretoria to prevent Namibian Breweries from selling its Hofbrau brand in South Africa. SAB told the court that it had concluded a licensing agreement with Staatliches Hofbrauhaus, the Munich-based brewer of Hofbrau, […]

Maria McCloy Homeless Talk has almost doubled its print run and plans to expand circulation. Last Saturday Homeless Talk Pretoria was launched and it is hoped that it will be available in all South Africa’s metropolitan areas by next year. According to the editorial co-ordinator of Homeless Talk, Glenn Grant, the paper has increased its […]

Mungo Soggot Two eminent editorial board members of an influential United States medical journal which slated South African Aids drug trials on pregnant women have resigned in protest at the articles. The New England Journal of Medicine said the trials – which give some of the women an Aids drug called AZT and others a […]