David Macfarlane and Glenda Daniels The widely expected appointment of a woman as the next vice-chancellor of the University of the Witwatersrand was announced this week but it is not Professor Leila Patel, the current deputy vice-chancellor. Instead, the selection committee this week recommended Irish candidate Professor Norma Reid. The university senate and the council […]
Barry Streek South Africa should introduce a food voucher scheme to ensure low-paid workers and their families can use smart cards to buy food apart from their cash earnings the Women’s Development Bank (WDB) has urged. Food vouchers could ensure food security in a country where 73% of all households receive monthly incomes of less […]
Guyana is one of the few places in the West Indies where fast bowlers are not always in the ascendancy John Young One of Guyana’s nicknames is “Mudland”. The pitch at the Bourda Ground in Georgetown, where the Test series begins on Friday, is nearly a metre below sea level. They get a lot of […]
Robert Kirby CHANNELVISION When it comes to television documentaries there seems to be a peculiarly British disease, rampant among directors particularly at the BBC. It is a pathological inability to leave well enough alone. In a recent BBC Panorama programme the subject was the spectacular cock-up that constitutes the current British railway system. After last […]
David McKay Inside mining Anglo Platinum, the world’s largest platinum group metal (pgm) producer, expects the pgm market to remain stable despite significant increases in production. Anglo Platinum, for one, is building yearly production to 3,5-million ounces by 2005, a growth in that company’s output of about three-quarters. The increasing use of pgm in autocatalysis […]
Nawaal Deane South Africa’s newest editor marked her first week running one of the country’s most prestigious financial publications with a thunderous attack on her management about editorial independence. Caroline Southey, who took over the helm of the Financial Mail (FM) last week, found herself in disagreement with her employers over her authority. BDFM, the […]
David Le Page Tiego Moseneke, CEO of empowerment company New Diamond Corporation, does not concur with some of the more severe criticisms of the Mineral Development Bill. He feels the provisions for security of tenure, for example, are adequate. “Once you are at mining stage, the Bill countenances the granting of 25-year leases that’s as […]
Key features of the National Plan for Higher Education include: l reducing the number of institutions; l eliminating duplication of programmes offered by institutions in the same region; l establishing a single distance education provider by merging Unisa, Technikon South Africa and Vista University’s distance education centre; l merging Vista’s contact tuition campuses with other […]
Ntuthuko Maphumulo The African Credit Bank has launched a money school to empower its clients on consumer issues relating to the financial market. The bank, which recently repositioned itself as a credit bank to cater for the lower end of the market, identified consumer education as one of its key corporate strategies to meet the […]
To mark International Women’s Day, a special Court of Women heard moving accounts of hardship from women displaced by war Marianne Merten ‘My husband was an ex-soldier and in my country [with the coming to power of a new government] ex-soldiers were pursued [for political reasons],” explains refugee Susan Matata. Matata, who comes from a […]
Sipho Seepe no blows barred Education has tended, throughout history, to serve the interests and objectives of political, cultural and economic systems. In South Africa education was once an instrument that divided people racially and ethnically. This Verwoerdian prescription became the bedrock that was to direct educational policies for 40 years of apartheid rule. The […]
Madoda David Mabunda right to reply The report “Kruger National Park R36m in the red” (March 2 to 8) warrants setting the record straight. The memorandum on “Drastic measures to curb non-essential expenditure” sent to 300 cost-centre supervisors and managers was an open internal management tool rather than a secret classified information document hidden in […]
The cruel legacy of the Group Areas Act is still being resolved by Paarl communities Marianne Merten Despite the settlement in Paarl last weekend of several claims for compensation for homes lost to forced removals, the struggle for restitution continues. The Paarl Land Claims Committee wants to meet authorities next week to discuss compensation for […]
David Beresford another country John Diamond has finally died of his cancer, mourned by a nation. Which brings to mind the memory of a hilarious newspaper column, Time to Go, by Richard Geefe. Diamond, who described himself as “an ordinary coward”, won fame in Britain for the “courage” with which he faced up to his […]
The new higher education plan has drawn broadly positive responses for the urgency with which it addresses serial crises David Macfarlane South Africa’s need for graduates has risen by a staggering 2 000% over the past three decades, but the current system of higher education cannot rise to this challenge. This is the scale of […]
Evidence wa ka Ngobeni Sixteen correctional services officials employed at the Thohoyandou Central prison near Pietersburg, Northern Province, were last week found guilty of participating in a moneylending racket inside the prison. The warders borrowed hundreds of rands from inmates, who were running loan schemes in the prison. The scheme is believed to have started […]
Thebe Mabanga Many South Africans will recall a debate held on national TV before the 1994 elections. The debate was between then state president FW de Klerk and then soon-to-be president Nelson Mandela. A panel of senior journalists was assembled to pose questions to the two leaders. The first question, which ignited and set a […]
They need to be reminded about hiring and firing procedures, or risk being sued Glenda Daniels It has been four years since the Employment Equity Act came into effect yet employers continue to flout legislation and, consequently, are forced to pay out huge sums of money in litigation suits. Failure to employ can be grounds […]
A local theatre company went north and brought back magical tales of urban Mozambique in a time of change Guy Willoughby ‘A man’s story is always badly told. That is because a man is always being born.” With this teasing disclaimer, Mozambican author Mia Couto launches us into a haunting, faintly surrealistic tale of modern […]
John Fordham CD OFTHEWEEK As if to further tantalise the thousands who packed London’s Festival Hall in the summer, the double disc Whisper Not (ECM), celebrating Keith Jarrett’s comeback after chronic-fatigue syndrome, has been late showing up. Now it is here, Jarrett fans everywhere will be listening anxiously to every bar to detect signs of […]
The government’s draft Mineral Development Bill extols widely admired principles, but critics argue it is built on very shaky, probably unconstitutional law David Le Page and Mungo Soggot South Africa’s new mineral rights legislation is being subjected to a fresh wave of intense criticism from foreign and local mining houses bridling at the draft Bill’s […]
The Pharmaceutical Manufacturers’ Association left the Pretoria High Court this week bloodied but unbowed in its battle against the government Belinda Beresford Who would have thought it would have been so brief, or so brutal? Certainly not the drug companies with their expensive lawyers, reams of legal papers and an attitude born of the reality […]
Tim Wood Journalists are insufferable when they get into a crusading mood and I have been positively painful about the way the Audit Bureau of Internet Standards (Abis) reports its results. Since its formation in 1997 I have been a long and strong supporter of Abis. It is an imperfect solution to measuring Web traffic, […]
It was with a sense of irony that I read the interview Howard Barrell and Sipho Seepe had with Nelson Mandela last week (“A sense of hope”). There can be no doubt that the revered stature of Mandela during his presidency had served to absorb, prevent, diminish or deflect criticism of his own weaknesses and […]
Adrian Gore is CEO and founder of Discovery Health. Katy Chance discovered a few of his favourites (though sadly not over coffee!) Adrian Gore describes his management style as hands-on and “hopefully inspirational”. “I don’t like to be too dictatorial. I feel people work better, myself included, in a positive environment. “But you’re asking the […]
HIV/Aids has had a devastating effect on a Zimbabwean village Scotch Tagwireyi In Charumbira village in Masvingo province, Zimbabwe, Wednesday is a sacred day. According to custom, it is the chief’s chosen day and no one is allowed to work in the fields or dig unless it is a grave that’s being dug. All women […]
In an article entitled “Durban deputy mayor in fraud probe” in the Mail & Guardian of March 2 to 8, it was reported that an investigation into allegedly corrupt practices involving councillor Logie Naidoo was ordered by the Office of Deputy President Jacob Zuma after it had received numerous complaints. Zuma’s office pointed out this […]
Andy Capostagno rugby It is safe to assume that not too many people in their pre-season crystal ball- gazing would have dismissed the Brumbies as no-hopers in their match against the Cats at Ellis Park this weekend. After all Eddie Jones’s men had beaten the Cats twice last year, scoring 92 points in total and […]
Brenda Gourley RIGHT to REPLY Last week the Mail & Guardian carried another article covering the case of Caroline White, a former professor at the University of Natal (“Am I actually emigrating?”). I can no longer remain silent while inaccurate and untrue statements are made and the University of Natal is brought into disrepute. I […]
Thebe Mabanga This weekend South Africa’s national lottery celebrates its first anniversary, marking 52 weeks of self-induced, unnecessary angst for punters among whom hope springs eternal that their lives will be changed by luck. The lottery is a strange beast of our generation. Every week hordes of punters go through a process that culminates in […]
Bruce Whitfield Few investors are likely to notice the disappearance of Conlog from the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) listings board but minority shareholders, who last year tried to have the firm liquidated, will be hoping its reemergence as Dynamic Cables SA will boost its fortunes. Conlog bought Dynamic Cables from Cape Empowerment Trust last year […]
A KENYAN businessman trying to trace his mobile phone rang the number from his house telephone – and heard the gadget ringing inside his two-year-old German Shepherd’s stomach. When the mobile telephone went missing from the bedside table he thought his toddler son had removed it. When he dialled the number, he said, he didn’t […]