TRADE unions and labour research analysts have rejected the results of the latest Statistics South Africa annual survey, which reported that the unemployment rate had fallen by 1.9 percent. Claire Horton, a senior economic researcher at the National Labour and Economic Development Institute said that the results were unreliable as current definitions of unemployment were […]
UNITED Nations Secretary- General Kofi Annan has been decorated with Ghana’s highest honour, Companion of the Order of the Star of Ghana, while on an official visit to his West African homeland. Speaking at a state banquet for the occasion, President Jerry Rawlings described Annan, the first UN secretary-general from sub-Saharan Africa, as a man […]
THREE alleged Rastafarians are scheduled to appear in the Warmbaths Magistrate’s Court on Thursday in connection with keeping nine children in an old mineshaft. The five girls and four boys, aged between five and 13, were rescued on Friday after police responded to a complaint that there were trespassers at the old Zwartlkloof mine, 10km […]
SOUTH African Breweries Plc (SAB) said its growing international operations helped to offset a slower performance in South Africa. The company’s international division’s total volume was up 30 percent for the quarter ending June 30, a performance attributed to a good early summer in Europe.”Overall, the group’s financial performance was ahead of the prior year […]
THE High Court in London has rejected various applications brought against Thor Chemicals by about 20 former employees seeking compensation for suffering mercury poisoning while working at the Thor plant in Pietermaritzburg. The court ruled that expert evidence submitted by Thor was admissible after the claimants’ lawyers applied to have it struck out, and an […]
INTELLIGENCE Minister Joe Nhlanhla has suffered a mild stroke and his poition will be assumed with immediate effect by Justice Minister Penuell Maduna. Nhlanhla’s condition was confirmed by a spokesman in President Mbeki’s office, Joel Netshitenzhe, who said Nhlanhla is in a stable condition at a Johannesburg hospital. Doctors attending to Nhlanhla expect him to […]
SCIENTISTS have made a breakthrough that could pave the way for a treatment for the deadly Ebola disease. Researchers from the US National Institutes of Health and Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, have found a protein manufactured by the Ebola virus that disrupts the cells that line the blood vessel walls. It is believed […]
FORMER Mpumalanga director general Coleman Nyathi has met with Home Affairs investigators in Pretoria in an attempt to head off a looming deportation order. Nyathi was forced to resign last week after Home Affairs hand delivered a letter warning he would be deported to Zimbabwe within 14 days unless he proved his South African citizenship. […]
British Airways said it had found no evidence of a fuel leak in one of its supersonic Concordes, which made a precautionary landing at Gander, in Canada. The Concorde, carrying 66 people from London to New York — including entertainers Tony Bennett and George Benson — was diverted to Canada two hours into its three-hour […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Monday 10:15am NATIONAL Sorghum Breweries (NSB), one of South Africa’s first black-owned companies, has for a first time in years shown a profit. Jaishankar Ramchandran, a representative of the Indian industrial group, United Breweries (UB), NSB’s largest shareholder, said a reduction in overheads, increased productivity and capacity utilisation had resulted in […]
Former president Nelson Mandela said the late Kobie Coetsee was a great South African who had not yet been accorded his rightful place among the patriots and had contributed to the peaceful transition in the country. Coetsee, 69, a former Justice Minister who served under both PW Botha and FW de Klerk, died early on […]
THE Department of Trade and Industry has set up a special task team to assist local companies export goods into the United States market. This will kick into action once the new African Growth and Opportunities Act comes into effect. Faizel Ismail, the department of Trade and Industry’s deputy director, said that the team’s task […]
An Egyptian team is traveling to New York to participate in the latest phase of the probe into the causes of crash last October of an EgyptAir Boeing 767, an official of the Egyptian Civil Aviation Authority said. All 217 people on board the aircraft were killed. The team, made up of ECAA officials, will […]
ST HELENA Bay could soon have a sponge cloth production plant as part of a project worth R100m. Norwegian company Kongsfoss Norge, is planning to move its sponge-cloth production plant from Norway to the South African west coast town, creating between 70 and 80 job opportunities. St Helena Bay was chosen as the best spot […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Friday 10.00am. SHAREHOLDERS in Nando’s, the fast food chain, voted overwhelmingly in favour of a controversial merger between Nando’s Group Holdings and its loss recording offshore operations, controlled by Nando’s chairperson Robbie Brozin. Critics including some Nando’s shareholders said that the deal was designed to salvage Brozin’s interests and protect them […]
Andrew Muchineripi SOCCER To most countries in Southern Africa the Castle Cup is manna from heaven, a rare opportunity for cash- strapped football associations to make money while spending none as the brewer foots travel and accommodation bills. For South Africa it is less of a blessing because the national association is extremely wealthy by […]
Robert Kirby loose cannon I am inspired to write this article (in ebullient defence of our worthy and misunderstood presidential representative) by the quite unseemly attacks made on his character and intellect in last week’s Mail & Guardian (“Mbeki’s malaise goes deeper than Parks”). Really! When a newspaper sinks to such murky invective simply because […]
Jaspreet Kindra The Department of Public Enterprises is showing extraordinary sensitivity about possible leaks of its latest policy document on privatisation – the cause of tension between the government and its union allies. The department this week threatened to search the bags of people, when two copies of the still- confidential document circulated at a […]
Ivor Powell The media blackout on Judge Willem Heath’s special investigations unit came about as a result of pressures from Judge Heath’s own staff – a staff afraid of losing jobs as the government squeezed ever harder on the maverick unit. Sources close to the unit said this week a virtual palace coup has been […]
Judicial history was made when Sibusiso Radebe the alleged mastermind behind the Miracle 2000 pyramid scheme was granted R1m bail, the highest ever set by a South African court. Radebe was released on condition that he reports every day to the Midrand police station. He also may not leave the greater Johannesburg and Nelspruit areas. […]
Glenda Daniels While a lower-level employee at the African National Congress headquarters said last week she was looking for another job because she did not get an increase this year and earns only R2 600 after tax, ministers who earn about R40 000 a month got a 10% increase. Top ANC officials such as secretary […]
Thebe Mabanga IN YOUR EAR Religion provides a rich source of interesting debate on a range of moral issues and radio has wisely latched on to its pulling power. Commercial stations do not touch religion with a bargepole. You see urbanised black people spend their Sunday mornings recovering from a Saturday night of clubbing, playing […]
Out of chaos come international biosafety rules, signed but still to be ratified John Vidal When Professor Howard Atkinson and colleagues at Leeds University genetically modified a potato to be pest- resistant without the use of chemicals, it was decided to test it in Bolivia, one of the world’s poorest and most malnourished countries and […]
With South African property about the cheapest in the world, perhaps now is the time to stop being a tenant and think of becoming an owner Ian Fife Property insiders who say that it’s time to start investing in residential property are supported by a recent world survey by Knight Frank that shows South African […]
OPPOSITION parties slammed Mpumalanga Premier Ndaweni Mahlangu on Thursday for allowing provincial director general Coleman Nyathi to resign instead of firing him on corruption charges. Nyathi resigned voluntarily but unexpectedly on Thursday morning, citing “personal problems” surrounding his citizenship. Both Home Affairs and the police Aliens Control Unit are currently investigating indications that Nyathi and […]
Glenda Daniels A senior official of the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa) has been dismissed for criticising the union’s handling of a strike amid claims by some of his colleagues that he was targeted for being too left wing. Dinga Sikwebu, who has been nominated for the post of general secretary, was […]
Clare Boylan Body Language When asked what age a woman ceases to feel the torments of the flesh the Princess Metter-nich replied: “I do not know. I am only 65.” Last week Marj Thoburn, a 60-year-old marriage guidance consultant, rocked a youth-obsessed boat by stating at a conference that people over 50 were more likely […]
The summits have turned into expensive media fests that don’t deliver very much Larry Elliot The good news for United States President Bill Clinton, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and the other G8 leaders is that Okinawa was no Seattle. Holding their annual shindig on a tropical island, converted for a couple of days into […]
Andy Colquhoun in Parramatta RUGBY Reporting on the Springboks occasionally puts one in mind of what it may have been like tramping in the wake of Caesar’s army as it marched into Germania each summer to campaign against the Visigoths (the author and proprietors of the Mail & Guardian in no way vouch for the […]
SOUTH African magnet maker Tridelta Magnet Technology Holdings has been placed into provisional liquidation with the listing of its ordinary shares suspended, the Johannesburg Stock Exchange. Tridelta’s share was last quoted down 40 percent at three cents. It went into free-fall on July 19, when the company issued a cautionary notice saying that it was […]
July 20 is the 75th anniversary of his birth. Richard Pithouse reflects, from Durban, on the unusually heroic life of a brilliant intellectual When McDonald’s opened their first branch in Durban a local business columnist read the landing of the empty smile and iconic arches in Old Fort Road as an advance blessing from the […]
A new report uncovers a secret SADF project to ‘cure’ homosexuals by giving them sex changes Paul Kirk Sex-change operations, medical torture and chemical castration were perpetrated on national servicemen in a bizarre programme to cure “deviants” during the apartheid era. To this day dozens of victims of the programme are crippled and disfigured, stranded […]