Staff Reporter

It’s not just the oil price that makes off- shore investing a slippery business Neil Thomas Trying to take a view on world investment markets right now, particularly equity markets, entails an intricate egg dance. And it’s a curate’s egg you have to dance on. It’s been a long time since international markets have looked […]

Unlike the Yugoslavs, the Zimbabweans have yet to develop an effective culture of mass protest Iden Wetherell It has been called “the Milosevic effect”. But comparisons with Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic’s fall from power may be premature. Zimbabwe’s capital, Harare, was this week the scene of riots over food prices. Bread has gone up by […]

process Gregory Mthembu-Salter The surprise summit in Maputo on October 16 of all the heads of state whose countries are at war in the Democratic Republic of Congo, barring Angolan President Eduardo dos Santos, marked the start of South Africa’s best opportunity yet to end the two-year conflict. Presidential advisers hope a positive outcome will […]

Robert Mattes a second look South Africans could be forgiven if they have become a little arrogant about their new democracy. After all, who could blame them? They negotiated a “miracle” transition, steering from probable terrible conflict to non- racial peace in a few short years. They engineered a state-of-the-art Constitution replete with innovations like […]

innovations Samsung has created a spectacularly fast Graphics Memory Chip: a 128MB DDR-SDRAM. That’s a bigger memory than most PCs have in the form of conventional memory. The new chip runs at 500 megabits a second (mbps), and will allow gamers especially to experience far higher resolution and clarity of image. Samsung claim the chips […]

Roshila Pillay Joseph Mashiloae always knew he was a man – until he tried obtaining proper banking facilities. He has been turned down by five different banks on the grounds that he is posing as a female. The reason for his rejection is simple – Mashiloae’s identity document classifies him incorrectly as a female. Seven […]

Chris Dunton Home and Exile by Chinua Achebe (Oxford University Press) Novels such as Things Fall Apart and A Man of the People have been so successful worldwide they have tended to overshadow Chinua Achebe’s non-fictional works. For over 30 years, though, the Nigerian has been demonstrating he is a master essayist. His new book, […]

He’s got it all – fame, money and talent. But there’s more to David Beckham than that. He talks to Ian Ridley about fatherhood, Fergie – and how terrace taunts brought him to the brink When the camera is trained on him, he goes immediately, automatically, into that famous and familiar moody, brooding look. You […]

A RURAL traditional healer has been arrested on allegations that he kidnapped and kept a teenager as a sex slave for five days in Northern Province. The 43-year-old man was arrested after the 14-year-old girl’s family members, who were afraid to fetch her, reported the matter to police doing patrols in the area. She told […]

Marina Cantacuzino Body Language Some people can identify a defining moment in their childhood – an incident that brings an idea to mind which is then indelibly fixed in the psyche. For Gelding – an adopted alias for the American Internet guru to all wannabe eunuchs – that moment came when he was 12 years […]

Belinda Beresford The fight between Aids activists and the government intensified this week when an NGO that helps rape survivors in Mpumalanga issued court papers against the provincial health MEC after being banned from state hospitals. The MEC for Health, Sibongile Manana, also accused the NGO, the Greater Nelspruit Rape Intervention Project (Grip), of illegally […]

head Khadija Magardie Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development Penuell Maduna this week threw his weight behind Constitutional Court president Arthur Chaskalson as his choice to lead a new super court. Maduna endorsed Chaskalson as the country’s top judicial officers gave the thumbs-up to a merger of the two highest courts in the land – […]

Is the expiry of the benchmark RSA encryption patent an Internet watershed? Karlin Lillington At a large security software conference held recently in Florida, United States, the most popular T-shirt among the 1 000 delegates was the one you could get for free from the exhibition stand for a company called RSA Security. On the […]

DUMISANE LUBISI and OWN CORRESPONDENT, Pietersburg | Friday A PIETERSBURG brother and sister’s 20-year incestuous relationship – which produced two children – has been exposed after their younger brother spilled the beans after a blazing family row. Police say the man is in his early 40s and his sister in her late 30s. They have […]

Class will out in the Currie Cup and the top sides have made it through to this weekend’s semifinals Andy Capostagno The rugby season that began on Friday February 25 is almost over. Those players who do not make Harry Viljoen’s Springbok touring squad of 40 can look forward to at least two months that […]

Paul Kirk Pension officials in KwaZulu- Natal are in hot water after an ageing pensioner was called a baboon while waiting in a pension queue and the official representative for Prince Gideon Zulu, Mike Gumede, claimed that pensioners enjoyed queuing in the hot sun as it gave them a chance to gossip with their friends. […]

Stuart Jeffries T he surprise winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature sat on the edge of a friend’s bed in Paris and reflected on the journey that had brought him from China to France, from the obscurity of being a playwright and novelist known only to a small number of critics and intellectuals to […]

up Evidence wa ka Ngobeni A principal at a North West school has admitted to beating students for failing to contribute towards the salary of another teacher at the school. LS Thwane, headmaster at Montshioa Memorial Middle School near Mmabatho, made his startling admission to the Mail & Guardian this week after students and teachers […]

MINING magnate Harry Oppenheimer, whose fortune was estimated at R30bn, has left a will that refers to wealth of only R307m, The Star newspaper reported. Further vast wealth is believed to have been left in trust before he died. The former chairman of the Anglo American Corporation and De Beers died in August aged 92. […]

SOUTH Africa and China have signed an agreement on the exchange of medical and public health expertise during a visit by Chinese Public Health Minister Zhang Wenkang. Zhang and his South African counterpart Manto Tshabalala-Msimang endorsed the cooperation pact, which encompasses primary health care, training and family and traditional medicines. South Africa and China reestablished […]

OWN CORRESPONDENTS and REUTERS, Johannesburg | Thursday SOUTH African farms will descend into chaos unless the government speeds up its process of land reform to satisfy the demands of landless blacks, lobby groups and lawyers have warned. Andile Mngxitama of the National Land Committee (NLC), a group of civil organisations working for land rights, said […]

MOZAMBIQUE has urged the United States to release $55m it pledged last May to rebuild an important railway that was damaged by devastating floods, the Mozambican transport minister said this week. “It is very important that those funds are released as quickly as possible,” Transport and Communications Minister Tomas Salomao told a press conference. The […]

THE Nigerian government has banned the militant group blamed for three days of bloody ethnic violence in Lagos and ordered its leaders to be arrested. Information Minister Jerry Gana told television that law enforcement agencies had been told to detain the leaders of the Odua Peoples Congress (OPC) over the killings of more than 100 […]

REUTERS, Lome | Thursday THE Organisation of African Unity (OAU) has followed the lead of the United Nations in withdrawing all monitors and observers from Ivory Coast’s presidential election this weekend in protest at the exclusion of most major candidates. Critics both in Ivory Coast and abroad say the poll is unrepresentative after the supreme […]

A NORTHWEST couple convicted of abusing and prostituting their three daughters for as little as R5 over a five-year period will be sentenced in the Pretoria Regional Court on October 30. The 41-year-old woman and the girls’ 31-year-old stepfather were convicted in August of abusing the 19-year-old and 16-year-old daughters, and of being party to […]

NIGERIAN authorities have ordered troops onto the streets of Lagos to restore order after three days of ethnic violence left more than 100 dead. Thousands of terrified residents sought protection in police and army barracks as Yoruba youths hunted down Hausa rivals in the worst ethnic violence to shake the city in almost a year. […]

REUTERS AND OWN CORRESPONDENT, Abuja | Wednesday NIGERIAN President Olusegun Obasanjo has pledged his government’s support to improve business confidence in the oil-producing country at the urging of industry leaders. “We have to improve confidence. I agree absolutely with that,” Obasanjo told the concluding session of this year’s Nigerian Economic Summit. Nigeria’s industry leaders and […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Cape Town | Wednessday A SOUTH African group of grappa distillers is spearheading an alliance to strike back at the European Union’s (EU) move to secure Italy’s position as the world’s only producer of “real” grappa. The SA Grappa and Distillation Association, which represents three distillers, wants all producers outside the EU to […]

A MONTH of Egyptian legislative elections has started without the participation of what political observers call the country’s largest opposition force – the Muslim Brotherhood. Egypt’s Islamists, who are prevented by law from evoking religion in their politics, have accused the government of “rigging the elections in advance” by arresting members of the banned Brotherhood, […]

THE World Bank and the International Monetary Fund are to back a debt relief package for the west African state of Cameroon worth a total of $2bn. The agreement makes Cameroon immediately eligible for an annual $100m in debt relief over the next three years, freeing up money that can be allocated to health care, […]

AFP and OWN CORRESPONDENT, Cape Town | Wednesday A BOMB exploded on Wednesday outside a restaurant in Cape Town’s Kenilworth suburb, just south of the city centre, injuring four people, police and rescue sources said. The bomb exploded around 9:00am in front of the Something Fishy eatery, which was not open for business, on the […]

ANGOLA’S lawmakers have extended their own mandate for the third time because of the ongoing civil war, the deputy speaker of parliament Juliao Paulo Mateus said. While the constitution gives lawmakers a four-year term, the parliament formed after elections in 1992 have twice extended their mandates. Mateus did not say how long the new mandate […]