Khadija Magardie As the Netherlands Parliament this week became the first in the world to legalise euthanasia the South African government says it has shelved discussion on the subject at least for the time being. The South African Law Commission (SALC) released a report on the subject in mid-1999, but it is currently gathering dust […]
A GERMAN evangelist had to leave Sudan after police used tear gas and canes to break up an Easter prayer gathering he was to have led at a public square in Khartoum, church officials said on Wednesday. The police clashed on Tuesday with the worshippers, injuring some and detaining 40, after organisers of the service […]
Barry Streek The South African Revenue Service (Sars) and the Department of Social Development face an administrative nightmare as they work with NGOs to speed up service delivery to the poor. A survey conducted by Socila Surveys shows there are more than 101?000 NGOs in the country a figure that could pose challenges to the […]
Ntuthuko Maphumulo soccer Orlando Pirates might have three trophies in their cabinet and a large sum of money in their bank account at the end of this season. The BP Top 8 champions are front-runners in the Premier Soccer League (PSL) and have a good chance of making it a hat-trick after drawing troubled Moroka […]
Stefaans Brmmer A German company which successfully tendered in South Africa’s arms acquisition package appears to have paid a company linked to former defence minister Joe Modise to lobby government on its behalf. The Mail & Guardian is in possession of a draft contract specifying that Futuristic Business Solutions (FBS) a company part owned by […]
The latest round of appointments by the Judicial Service Commission in many ways confirms trends set by the commission over the past few years. The commission has made it clear that race is the most important factor determining appointments to the bench, and there is little doubt it has succeeded in making our courts more […]
BENIN is to offer Aids patients up to 99% off the cost of medical treatment with assistance from France and the World Foundation Against Aids, the national Aids agency said on Wednesday. Costing a total of 1.150bn CFA francs (17.5m euros), the Benin government will foot 457_000 euros of the bill. Between 95 and 99% […]
Belinda Beresford Economic, social and humanitarian considerations should be driving the government to introduce a national strategy to reduce mother-to-child transmission of HIV, according to research presented at the Aids in Context conference last week. Opinion has been varied on why the government has shown such tardiness in introducing nationwide measures to cut the transmission […]
Lynda Gilfillan food Just up from Fancourt Estate, on the road to George airport, is a turn-off along a gravel road that leads to Leila’s Arms Organic Food Kitchen. A stone pathway takes one through an abundant vegetable garden where bright green spinach leaves form rich colour contrasts with various kinds of lettuce. At the […]
Martin Gillingham Disgraced Springbok prop Cobus Visagie has apologised to the distributors of a controversial food supplement for blaming it for the positive drugs test that led to his banning from the sport. Soon after the story of Visagie’s drugs failure broke in October last year he blamed the food supplement ZMA and the South […]
After a night on the town with Talvin Singh, Sheryl Garratt says the world’s trendiest tabla player is more inspired than arrogant It seems there are two Talvin Singhs, both of them Londoners who play the tablas and DJ at various clubs. One of them is the arrogant, pompous name-dropper you may have read about […]
Letters to the best man Chez Uhuru 228 Musgrave Road iThekwini To:Dr Essop Pahad The Presidency Union Buildings Tshwane Dear Dr Pahad, Let me declare immediately that I share your deep concern about the mounting attacks on our leader. Rarely in the field of human endeavour has one man been so sadly misunderstood. We need […]
Belinda Beresford The presidential security establishment has grown concerned about Thabo Mbeki’s alleged philandering, veteran journalist Max du Preez said this week. Du Preez, who has incurred the wrath of the African National Congress for saying on national radio this week that Mbeki is a “womaniser”, said in an interview on Wednesday: “This issue has […]
Sherilee Bridge South Africa’s R11-billion wrap funds industry is on the brink of collapse. The introduction of capital gains tax later this year threatens a large portion of the industry, much as it wiped it out in the United Kingdom. That’s not to say that there are those who would not be pleased to see […]
Andy Capostagno rugby Difficult though it might be to comprehend, if the Sharks beat the Chiefs in Rotorua on Saturday they will have qualified for the Super 12 semifinal with three rounds of the competition still to go. Currently lying on 28 points from seven matches, a win would take Rudolf Straeuli’s team to 32 […]
Steven Friedman worm’s eye view No matter how clever markets get, they have not found a way to abolish people. On the right and left we are often told that we live in the age of the triumph of the multinational corporation. For the free market lobby, the power of the conglomerate is a triumph […]
David Beresford Another Country Recent genetic evidence supporting the view that mankind is descended from a single woman in Africa and disclosing that man only arrived tens of thousands of years later is obviously startling. It would suggest (at least to my unscientific mind) that if humankind was cast in the Almighty’s image then he […]
Sex work is a major income-generating opportunity but most sex workers want to leave the profession, a recent Hillbrow study shows. David Macfarlane and Glenda Daniels report In today’s insecure job market, any employment that requires no CV, low skills and no education, allows you to be your own boss, work your own hours and […]
Belinda Beresford The Anglican church is moving to save “God’s Babies” with a programme to cut the level of mother-to-child transmission. The move by the church which is increasingly involved in combatting the HIV/Aids epidemic comes at the same time as the news that the government has halted a pilot project to provide an anti-retroviral […]
It could take fund managers considerable time to lure investors back to the domestic unit trust market after its poor performance over the past six months Neil Thomas The daggers are out for fund managers as another set of quarterly unit trust results show how poorly many local funds have performed. Investors should be annoyed, […]
Pule waga Mabe African National Congress MP Peter Mokaba and other members of the ANCYouth League’s “old guard” were influential in the surprise re-election of Malusi Gigaba as league president at its national congress at the weekend. And in an interview this week Gigaba echoed former youth league president Mokaba who had told the 1996 […]
John Young cricket To win away from home is every sportsman’s dream. Naas Botha did it at Newlands, Kaiser Chiefs used to do it. Rugby and soccer, however, require only an hour or two of concentrated effort. To win a five-Test cricket series is the ultimate. When Jacques Kallis took the final wicket of the […]
Peter Robinson cricket Best bit of commentary out of the Caribbean so far has come from Sir Vivian Richards. “If he’s a number nine,” he opined, casting a magisterial eye over Shaun Pollock, “then I’m a Jewman.” As if to demonstrate that he has no beef with any particular religious persuasion, Sir Viv followed this […]
Matthew Krouse By April 9, officials of the National Council of SPCAs in South Africa had not viewed the Mexican film Love’s a Bitch (Amores Perros) with its controversial dogfight that almost led to its banning and subsequent age restriction in the United Kingdom last year. They have, however, made contact with their British counterpart […]
Funeral pyres, decomposing corpses, conspiracy theories, xenophobia: the similarities between the plagues of medieval Europe and Britain’s current foot and mouth epidemic are marked, writes John Vidal Each day, many thousands died. The land was empty, the villages were silent. Fires smouldered for weeks, the acrid palls of smoke drifting over the hills and valleys. […]
Tim Wood American notes Iwas bitterly disappointed to learn that M-Web intends delisting. It’s not that it was a surprise since Moneyweb first reported on the delisting rumours, but to see it announced was a shock. M-Web was the point stock for Internet plays and it has given up with hardly a shot being fired. […]
The agency tasked with disbursing funds to combat poverty is not meeting its targets David Macfarlane Creating the momentary impression that you’ve stepped on to the flightdeck of the Starship Enterprise, electric-blue light glows and hums in the irradiated reception area of the National Development Agency’s (NDA) elegant new offices in Braamfontein, Johannesburg. Astronomically, the […]
Robert Kirby CHANNELVISION The tyranny of television stations can and may soon be “tamed”, to use the expression of a commentator in the New York Times. Cracking the metaphorical whip will be a new piece of technology, a telly-top box already in production in the United States and the United Kingdom. It’s called a digital […]
Martin Spring london calling It jumped out of the tables of investment performance I was reviewing as I flew to Hong Kong on Sunday a fund that has not only delivered a return of 439% over the past three years with below-average risk for its sector, but that has even managed to increase in value […]
Thebe Mabanga in your ear Eleven years of being a cultured, avid and habitual listener of radio may not be enough to claim to be a guru, but it certainly helps to distinguish good radio from the bad and unbearable. So, to reflect on a period during which the medium has been a consuming and […]
Best-performing South African unit trust, quarter: Futuregrowth Pure Equity, 15,22% (sell-sell, income reinvested) Last quarter’s winner: Sage Global, 16,23% Best-performing South African unit trust, one year: Liberty Resources R, 55,98% (sell-sell, income reinvested) Last quarter’s winner: Sage Global, 51,91% Best-performing South African unit trust, three year: Liberty Resources R, 230,7% (buy-sell, income reinvested) Last quarter’s […]
whipping boy With the pool boosted by R600?000-plus from a carryover at the Vaal on Tuesday, the pick six at Newmarket on Thursday night assumes an attractive glow. It’s all too easy to be suckered into laying out too much money on these occasions in the hope of a life-changing dividend. Playing the pick six […]