Staff Reporter

peace’ Stefaans Brmmer A Johannesburg-based “arms dealer” and South Africa’s top spy have locked horns in a court contest involving claims that the dealer is a threat to world peace and confirmation that South African intelligence collaborates with the United States CIA. Affidavits lodged by both sides pending a Pretoria High Court hearing reveal details […]

Howard Barrell and Barry Streek New National Party leader Marthinus van Schalkwyk may be the ultimate victor as the African National Congress’s desperate bid to exploit the firing of maverick Western Cape MEC Peter Marais fizzled out this week. A plot to give Van Schalkwyk a seat of power – the premiership of the Western […]

Bob Fisher SAILING Days before the start of the America’s Cup, New Zealand’s defence has come under fire – and not solely from their Italian challengers. The Kiwi skipper Russell Coutts and his crew are at odds with Team New Zealand chief executive Sir Peter Blake and his team responsible for the defence of the […]

Mercedes Sayagues Judging from President Robert Mugabe’s body language during his State of the Nation address on Tuesday, he was in shock. Stiff and aloof, albeit in a father-of-the-nation magnanimous style, he conceded defeat in the referendum over his draft Constitution. It was a far cry from the fist-waving, cocky Mugabe of earlier weeks. At […]

Four hours from the summit of Everest, Cathy O’Dowd came across a stricken climber. She faced a brutal choice: to risk her own life in a doomed rescue – or to push on to the top. Here she explains why she left the barely breathing body I stared at the body, blinking in disbelief. We […]

A TEAM from French car manufacturer Peugeot arrived in Gabarone, Botswana on Thursday for talks about bailing out Hyundai’s bankrupt car assembly plant. The 193-million pula ($41-million) plant, Botswana’s biggest manufacturing enterprise, was placed under temporary liquidation last month after it could not service loans of about $127-million. The talks with Peugeot follow similar ones […]

Fiona Macleod Tigers may soon be roaming free in the foothills of the Drakensberg, like their sabre-toothed cousins did millions of years ago. Two seven-month-old pure-bred Bengal tigers are already in South Africa, waiting to become part of an ambitious scheme to breed these critically endangered cats on the African continent. Three tiger subspecies have […]

Religion has a packaging problem. It is like a supermarket with thousands of products on the shelves which really deal in two things only: calories and cleansing. Kilometres of competing packets turn a simple matter of eating, drinking and washing into a nightmare of choice when all you need is more or less to bounce […]

Paul Kirk Smuggling. The very word conjures images of drug dealers and hardened criminals. But in the United States, a special squad of dogs is trained to separate South African travellers from their smuggled biltong. Owing to restrictions on uncooked meat and vegetables the US does not allow biltong to be imported. That means South […]

Donna Block It’s boom time in Rustenburg as metal madness takes over the commodities markets. Speculators, mutual funds and hedge funds are seeing metals as safe investments amid fears of rising inflation and higher interest rates in the United States and Europe. A year ago most precious metals were on the junk heap. Now they’re […]

Howard Barrell The government is seeking to avoid a political train smash with public service unions by overhauling the civil service pay structure that would automatically fix most annual increases at about the rate of inflation. But these government proposals – at the centre of its plans to improve the civil service while halting the […]

AFRICA’S largest single energy sector industrial plant, Nigerian Liquefied Natural Gas, will be officially opened in April by President Olusegun Obasanjo, the company said. The plant has been operating since last October and the second of its two units was completed this week. The official opening had been planned for November but was delayed after […]

Brenda Atkinson MIXED MEDIA It’s been a good month for eye-catching advertising and provocative media commentary. Andersen Consulting’s recently launched electronic commerce ad campaign hits where it hurts. Featuring a sheep in wolf’s clothing trying to blend in with a pack of the real yellow-eyed beasts, the advert poses the rather chilling question: “Trying to […]

South African soccer is trying to clean up its image just weeks before a delegation from world governing body Fifa arrives to assess South Africa’s bid to host the 2006 World Cup Evidence wa ka Ngobeni, Jubie Matlou and Connie Selebogo South African soccer is set for a major shake-up as the government moves to […]

Lynda Gilfillan ‘Seen from above – from a plane, for instance – South Africa is a dry and empty land: rock and stunted bush, grey and khaki. The landscape art and literature of South Africa’s white settlers harped on the barrenness of their new home, and on its indifference to whether they starved or prospered, […]

Rhoda Kadalie A SECOND LOOK I call on the editors of the selected media to defy the subpoenas served on them by the Human Rights Commission (HRC) en bloc. By appearing before the HRC, they will give credence to a discredited organisation that has failed to carry out its mandate effectively since its inception in […]

SARAH BULLEN, Cape Town | Friday 5.30pm THE Johannesburg Stock Exchange ran out of steam on Friday afternoon, after climbing marginally higher earlier in a day dominated by futures trade. The major indices closed mixed, with only the industrial and IT counters ending in positive territory. Boosting the IT sector was news that Prism rose […]

Peter Dickson Simmering tensions between the African National Congress and the United Democratic Movement over the strike at Volkswagen’s Uitenhage plant exploded in the provincial legislature this week as the ANC accused the UDM of fomenting the labour dispute. Introducing a snap debate on the strike on Monday, Eastern Cape MEC for Finance and former […]

With a new film out and a new job as chair of the UKFilm Council, how does Alan Parker see the future for British movies? Tim Adams ‘Oh, I’m much calmer, less controlling, more relaxed these days,” says Alan Parker, smiling, telling me how he has not only written and directed the film version of […]

Tjaart Potgieter LIFESTYLE Saturday evening. I was fantasising about Sunday lunch at the Troyeville hotel – I hadn’t been there for quite a while – and I thought it would go something like this: here we are, sitting quietly at a corner table waiting for our chicken livers and grilled calamari, sipping a glass of […]

Robert Colman Gregory Vuyani Maqoma is one of the young choreographers commissioned to do a piece for this year’s FNB Vita Dance Umbrella. I sat in on a rehearsal of his work, Rhythm Blues, at the Dance Factory. At first the dancers are self-conscious, pretending not to be, of the stranger in the rehearsal room. […]

ITALIAN Foreign Minister Lamberto Dini said in Cairo Wednesday that the first Euro-African summit will be a chance for his country to look into alleviating the debts of Africa’s poorest countries. However, “executive decisions (on debt cancellation) are not on the agenda of the summit,” scheduled for April 3-4 in Cairo, he said. Dini said […]

Andy Capostagno RUGBY The first time anybody mentioned cost was when the New Zealand Rugby Football Union (NZRFU) suggested that it could not afford the extra camera(s) required to assist the “tellyref”. Until that moment the Super 12 was the competition where size mattered and money was no object. Now Australia wants not one, but […]

sale Mike Loewe Transport parastatal Transnet is planning to sell scores of remote railway properties in the Eastern Cape that have become home to hundreds of evicted farm workers and retired railway workers. The inhabitants of the railway buildings have been renting them from Transnet, which is now poised to sell the properties to neighbouring […]

Deon Potgieter BOXING An air of eager anticipation was present as the combatants of the “Night of the Legends” boxing tournament, to be staged at Carnival City on Saturday night, came face to face on Tuesday afternoon at the pre-fight medical. Although the main event between “Baby” Jake Matlala and Hawk Makepula has captivated fans, […]

Ben Ngubane Elisabeth Lickindorf’s article “SA students are scientifically illiterate”(January 14 to 20) is based on the research results of a science literacy survey conducted on first-year university and technikon students in 1994. Dr Rudiger Laugksch and Professor Peter Spargo at the universities of the North and Cape Town published the results of the survey […]

SHARES in steel giant Iscor extended early losses on Thursday on news that recent floods will impact negatively on its production. The counter, which was down almost 3%, slid further to be 3,19% lower at R22,75 on the news. The company said that floods are expected to result in a loss of 500000 tons of […]

Mercedes Sayagues The queues for paraffin at the petrol stations were longer than the queues at the polling stations. Some of the four million people, or 80% of registered voters, who abstained must have been queuing. Others instead voted because paraffin, petrol and diesel are scarce but hardship is abundant. On two days, 1,33-million Zimbabweans […]

Adam Sweeting When the American record industry dishes out its annual awards this month, all eyes will be on Carlos Santana, the 52- year-old guitarist who has been nominated for 10 Grammys. That would be a remarkable achievement in any circumstances, but only a year ago Santana was thought of as a 1970s throwback with […]

Sarah Bullen Last year the Insider Trading Directorate (ITD) dropped a minor bombshell on local markets by publishing a list of companies in whose shares insider trading was suspected. In January it added 10 more to its list of 43. Six claims have been settled, seven have been closed due to lack of evidence and […]

Fumane Diseko COLOURS OF THE MOUNTAIN by Da Chen (Random House) DAUGHTER OF THE RIVER by Hong Ying (Bloomsbury) Both these books are autobiographical texts dealing with life in China. Da Chen, born in 1962 into a “landlord’s family” during Mao Zedong’s rule, suffers for the sins of his family. The roller- coaster policies of […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Friday 2.00pm. A BATTLE of epic proprtions awaits spectators at Vosloorus Stadium when South Africa’s national under-23 side, the Amaglug-glug take on Cameroon in an Olympic qualifying match on Saturday. The visitors sport a team studded with African Nations Cup jewels, and the Amaglug-glug wil have their work cut out to […]