Staff Reporter

Durban’s drowned and Cape Town’s still smouldering, but you’re all right – you’re well insured. Or are you? Gavin Foster looks at some disputes between insurers and their clients ‘One of the problems is that people today often buy their insurance directly from the companies rather than use a broker,” says Michael Bennett, the South […]

Internet relay chat (IRC) became easier when “talking heads” arrived: you could have a face for each member of the conversation, even if it wasn’t their real face. Now Lake Clear Interactive has produced IRC Toons, a Windows program that can be downloaded free from www.irctoons.com. It lets you create characters for use on IRC […]

Fiona Macleod First they were blamed for the Cape fires, now they’re being blamed for the floods. Experts say the huge forests of alien trees planted in the catchment areas of Mpumalanga have exacerbated the flooding that ravaged the province this week. Mpumalanga produces 39% of the country’s timber. Commercial timber, mostly pine and gum […]

Mercedes Sayagues The Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) rally in Mbare township ends peacefully at 3.30pm. I am waiting for a lift into town with an MDC candidate when a group of young men arrives. One is badly wounded – gashes on his head and lips, broken teeth, his shorts spattered with blood. He says […]

Howard Barrell The South African Revenue Service (SARS) is turning its guns on tax fraudsters who are cheating the country out of up to R30- billion a year. Some large companies are also involved in fraudulent tax evasion schemes, according to SARS officials. The SARS says it is poised to crack the fraudulent schemes these […]

Cameron Duodu LETTER FROM THE NORTH Because I knew my Sudan piece would be controversial, I sent it to a friend of mine who works for a large international news agency for her comments before publication. She wrote back: “It is a heart-breaking situation and you, too, will come in for abuse, of course. Off […]

Marianne Merten The Democratic Party in the Western Cape wants to team up with its provincial coalition partner, the New National Party, to take on the African National Congress in the forthcoming local government elections. “It’s important the uni-city will be governed by the parties that form the coalition,” said DP Western Cape leader Hennie […]

South Africa may have as many as 20 000 Internet addicts, writes Howard Barrell Any South African company whose employees are linked to the Internet probably has at least one middle or senior manager suffering from some form of Internet addiction. And that may well be an underestimate of the problem, according to a number […]

champions Bob Woolmer FROM THE PAVILION Australia is the dominant side in world cricket at the moment. South Africa are in transition, England too, while Pakistan and India are full of Eastern promise but short on fulfilling that promise. As soon as there is any bounce in the pitch they are found wanting. The West […]

Peter Dickson Eastern Cape MEC for Education Stone Sizani has promised to throw the province’s farm schools a R13,9-million lifeline after being subpoenaed by the Human Rights Commission (HRC) to explain his failure to fund the schools. The HRC has issued two previous subpoenas to Sizani since late last year, but in both instances he […]

A murder suspect who threatened to kill the two witnesses to his alleged crime has been freed on bail of R500, and nobody involved in the case can explain why. Heather Hogan reports ‘It must have been a mistake,” shrugged a clerk at Botshabelo Magistrate’s Court, of the alleged murderer’s release on R500 bail. And […]

Marianne Merten The alleged bogeyman behind Cape drive-by shootings – Ebrahim Jenneker of People against Gangsterism and Drugs (Pagad) – will stand trial on 124 charges ranging from murder to malicious damage to property in the Cape High Court from Monday. For more than six months he has been moved between different Cape jails following […]

As Africans, we have a terrific talent for talking. Whether or not we have an equal talent for doing still remains to be seen.

While the mothers of Westbury counsel one another, their daughters have found their own forms of association, writes Khadija Magardie They have suffered. For decades the mothers, daughters, wives and grandmothers of Westbury have borne the brunt of the frustrations and broken dreams of the community’s men. Violence, rape, domestic assault and even murder of […]

Paul Kirk A senior member of the Zulu royal family and KwaZulu-Natal’s MEC for Welfare, Prince Gideon Zulu, is receiving regular payments by way of his daughter from the security company that delivers the province’s state pensions. Cash Paymaster Services (CPS) has held the multimillion-rand contract for about five years. It is responsible for delivering […]

downtown PE Barry Streek The first major land redistribution deal involving prime urban land has been sealed in Port Elizabeth, where about 4E000 people will soon be given plots in the middle of the city centre. The Department of Land Affairs is to pump R42-million into the residential development, which will span 140ha of land […]

Charlotte Denny Suddenly it seems everybody is at it. Every advert contains a Web address, and no self-respecting retailer would dream of ignoring the potential of e-commerce. The Organisation for Economic Co- operation and Development (OECD) has estimated that e-commerce will be worth $1-trillion worldwide by 2005 – around 3% of global gross domestic product […]

Peter Dickson Surrounded by a depressing cocktail of shantyland and industria, its dark corridors almost endless and with stray goats grazing at its doorstep in the menacing Friday night shadow of gangsters, Port Elizabeth’s Dora Ngiza hospital is where babies are turned away to die. Every day at the hospital, battling to stretch limited finances […]

THE United States said it has reached agreement with the West African nation Burkina Faso on an “open skies” pact that will allow unrestricted air service between the two countries. US Transportation Secretary Rodney Slater said the agreement was initialed in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, on Wednesday and marked the first agreement between the United States […]

Reports by Jubie Matlou, Connie Selebogo, Evidence wa ka Ngobeni, Khadija Magardie and Sharon Hammond When she woke at 5am on Thursday to see her husband off for work, Nozipho Mjoli saw no danger in the stream that usually flowed about 100m from her shack. But a few hours later, after having returned to bed, […]

David Beresford ANOTHER COUNTRY One day, no doubt, my grandson will ask me: “Where were you when Nelson Mandela was released?” I will reply: “I was there, my boy! I was there.” And he will say: “Don’t cry, grandpa. He did live an awfully long time!” “It’s not that,” I will say, irritably brushing away […]

Khadija Magardie WHO IS … SALIM OULDSALEK? In the week President Thabo Mbeki limbered up for his State of the Nation address, he found time to meet an emissary from one of Africa’s more arcane conflicts. Salim Ouldsalek, foreign minister of the would-be Saharawi Arab Republic, is in South Africa to revive the long-standing ties […]

Dan Atkinson and John Cassy SHARE WORLD The Internet’s huge, hyperactive gossip and rumour machine looks almost certain to come under scrutiny from the British Financial Services Authority (FSA) amid rising concern about its power to move share prices and even to distort markets. Scams such as “pumping and dumping” – in which Internet noticeboards […]

TOP German cyclist Jan Ullrich heads a strong field for South Africa’s premier cycling event, the Vodacom Rapport Tour, which starts in Cape Town on Friday and ends on February 19. The 26-year-old Ullrich, 1999 Tour of Spain and 1997 Tour de France winner, leads the Deutsche Telekom team, one of 15 six-member teams competing […]

Patekile Holomisa A SECOND LOOK One of the ironies of post-colonial Africa is the ease with which its new rulers find comfort within the governance systems of their former oppressors, while they all invariably seem not to know what to do with the indigenous systems that have somehow managed to survive the colonial onslaught. There […]

Steven Friedman WORM’S EYE VIEW Our politics now is a little like a Hollywood western; if you want to be taken seriously, you have to talk tough. The most obvious examples are Minister of Safety and Security Steve Tshwete and his colleague in education, Kader Asmal. Tshwete is given to denouncing criminals and human rights […]

There was a programme the other night about men and their penises. The previous week, there was one about women and their clitorises, which featured liberated dames spreading their legs before mirrors, solemnly admiring the “beauty of their vaginas” for the benefit of assembled academia and TV cameras. It was a bit strange watching that […]

Riaan Wolmarans Gauteng’s party scene has recovered from its January slump with two exciting dance events planned for this month. Love and thumping beats are in the air on Saturday February 12 when Mother Productions presents From Mother with Love. It takes place at a new venue, the Warehouse Complex at 11 North Reef Road, […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Harare | Friday 8.00pm South Africa is poised to rescue Zimbabwe from its crippling fuel and looming electricity energy shortages, a Zimbabwean cabinet minister said on Friday. Nathan Shamuyarira said at the end of talks between President Thabo Mbeki and Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe in Harare on Friday that they discussed the country’s […]

David Davies Golf Tiger Woods, for whom record breaking seems to be the normal situation, has equalled one of the more unlikely marks in golf, and is now in pursuit of one of the most preposterous. The world number one, whose win at the Pebble Beach National Pro-Am this week took his successive United States […]

Michael Finch Hockey Claire Digby, the president of South Africa hockey, had a tough job this week. While delighted with the decision by the National Olympic Committee of South Africa (Nocsa) to include the women’s hockey side in the Olympic team, Digby also had to inform the men’s team that they would not be going […]

Hawkers who recently moved to the Rockey Street Market complain that the rental is too high, writes Jubie Matlou It’s a rare sight in South Africa to spot a white hawker selling his wares side by side with a black woman grilling mielies on a brazier. Andy McKay is one of the few white hawkers […]