Staff Reporter

Local markets should benefit this year from renewed international approval, writes Donna Block. Go along for the ride It requires a great deal of boldness and a great deal of caution to make a great fortune, and when you have it, it requires ten times as much skill to keep it. Ralph Waldo Emerson made […]

Web Watch At www.dogdoo.com you can send, anonymously of course, a box of dog turds to your worst enemy. It’s worth visiting just to read the thank-you letters and recommendations. Fan clubs, theatre troupes, football teams and similar groups can get organised on the Web using the free service at www.SmartGroups.com. Features include a message […]

The municipal demarcation process is being obfuscated by a misinformation campaign, writes Jubie Matlou The dispute that has erupted between the Municipal Demarcation Board and KwaZulu- Natal traditional leaders revolves around the role and powers of traditional leaders and the demarcation of traditional authority land under the municipal demarcation process. These two issues were the […]

THE president of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe, has “surprised” bank officials by winning Z$100000 in a promotional draw carried out by Zimbank for its clients. Zimbabwe Banking Corporation (Zimbank) said Mugabe’s name emerged from the promotional draw on Wednesday out of thousands of qualifying account holders who participated in the promotion. “Master of ceremonies Fallot Chawawa […]

Steven Friedman Worm’s Eye View Politicians can – and should – pass laws extending our rights. But only citizens can – and should – ensure that we use them. For some, the four Bills struggling their way through Parliament signal an ambitious government attempt to create a new society. They deal with core issues such […]

Andrew Muchineripi Soccer The first round of the African Cup of Nations delivered 21 goals, seven enjoyable matches, more highs and lows than normally found on a weather chart, and further proof that the only certainty in football is uncertainty. Ghana and Cameroon set a lively pace in the opening match and it has barely […]

Fight Club, starring Brad Pitt, is one of the most violent films ever made. It has shocked audiences, but director David Fincher feels misunderstood, writes Damon Wise There’s a scene in Fight Club where Tyler Durden, the evil genius played by Brad Pitt, is working as a projectionist in a downtown multiplex. He’s working frantically, […]

I am snowed-in in the United States, and although it is initially quite exciting, the novelty begins to fade as the implications begin to sink in.

SPORT and Recreation Minister Ngconde Balfour wants greyhound racing legalised. Briefing the national Assembly’s sport and recreation committee on Tuesday, Balfour said greyhound racing is legal in most developed countries. He asked the committee to start investigating the possibility of legalising the sport. Balfour said his office had received a flood of correspondance on the […]

Mail & Guardian reporter Get those stories out of your bottom drawer – or start writing now! The South African Internet literary journal, LitNet, which has been a notable success in Afrikaans and is now expanding into English, is running an online creative writing workshop and is calling for stories. WriteAgain, sponsored by Penguin publishers […]

Eddie Webster and Glenn Adler A Second Look There is an increasingly widespread view in business circles and among conservative columnists in the press that trade unions are the main obstacle to job creation, foreign investment and a new growth path. Some even evoke the labour-repressive Chilean or South Korean options to clear the way […]

Sharon Gill Choosing a healthy bottom line and attacting new members has seen medical schemes develop some innovative products in the past few years. “We really changed the rules of the game. We structured a wellness programme called Vitality, because if people lead a healthy lifestyle, it will lead to reduced healthcare costs,” says Neville […]

Fiachra Gibbons Seamus Heaney, the Irish Nobel laureate, won the Whitbread book of the year award this week when his ancient warrior Beowulf slew the upstart young wizard Harry Potter. It is the fourth year in a row that a poet has won the 22E000 prize. Heaney’s translation of the ancient Anglo- Saxon epic poem […]

MPUMALANGA’s sacked deputy speaker, Cynthia Maropeng, and three co-accused admitted to using almost R1-million in State funds to buy themselves houses and other personal items on Wednesday. Maropeng, legislature secretary Wilson Ngwenya, legislature finance director Jomo Siboza and former legislature secretary Alfred Mahlangu signed the admissions as part of a bid to speed up their […]

David Beresford Another Country South Africa is about to ban discrimination, which, considering this country’s track record in the 20th century and previously, seems a reasonable thing to do. In fact, it is to be outlawed from February 4 2000. This can be stated with the certainty of constitutional edict, the founding document of our […]

Channel vision Last week I was harping on about how television delivers up its little shock tactics. Some crafty incubus waits until the audience is deep in mindless acceptance mode, then slips in a dart so sharp as to horrify. Last Saturday this happened in the middle of an SABC3 news bulletin. The effect was […]

Deon Potgieter Boxing Acknowledged as one of the top 10 South African boxers of the past century, “Baby” Jake Matlala is intent on earmarking a place in the top 10 list of the new century as well. He meets the power-punching Hawk Makepula for the vacant World Boxing Organisation (WBO) junior flyweight title on February […]

Lucretia Stewart Body Language `Why can’t a woman be more like a man?” was Professor Higgins’s bewildered complaint in My Fair Lady, as Eliza Doolittle led him a merry dance. How times have changed. Now men want to be more like women, sometimes even to be women. Failing that, the question today seems to be: […]

CD of the week Cape Verde – the name just hasn’t been the same since that wonder-woman Cesaria Evora was discovered singing her mornas in a dusty bar in Mindelo. These days Evora must be one of her country’s biggest exports. Ignored until her fifties, she suddenly sold over 200E000 copies of Miss Perfumado, which […]

FOURTEEN people were killed and 11 were injured when a lorry packed with people and produce plunged off a bridge into a river near Calulo in Angola’s Cuanza-Sul province, LUSA news agency reported on Thursday. Most of the casualties in the Luime river accident were travelling traders on their way to the town of Dondo […]

In the week the SABC showed graphic footage of the carnage in Sierra Leone, a Port Elizabeth businessman has been accused of fuelling the civil war in that country. Peter Dickson reports A Canadian probe into the diamond trade in Sierra Leone has accused a controversial Port Elizabeth businessman of peddling weapons and mercenaries in […]

What’s new? The lovely Ananova will soon be reading the news on the Press Association’s website – and working 24 hours a day without any breaks for eating or sleeping or visiting the bathroom. She is a vactor (virtual actor) or “synthespian” created by Digital Animations, and she uses text-to-speech software from Lernout & Hauspie. […]

Tom Roach Yachting For this year’s millennium race the weather in the South Atlantic has not followed the expected pattern. Instead of spending days on end sailing downwind under huge spinnakers, crews found themselves battling fickle winds on their beam, or from ahead. Frequent sail changes, often several times an hour, kept them on their […]

Telford Vice looks at the shenanigans behind the resignation of United Cricket Board president Ray White The covers were peeled off South African cricket at the weekend, and the cracks in the exposed surface were more than superficial. On Saturday, Ray White bowed to pressure from within and resigned as president of the United Cricket […]

Movie of the week It is rather strange to see Brad Pitt, who has a body immaculately toned down to the last sinew, scoffing at the male models in Gucci ads. Is the irony deliberate? In Fight Club it is often hard to tell. This is a film that derides consumerism, but it is made […]

THE cash-strapped government of Lesotho on Wednesday finalised the sale of 80% of its government vehicle pool to a South African company in the kingdom’s latest privatisation venture. The government’s R80-million deal with Imperial Fleet Services was signed in the kingdom’s capital Maseru. The sale includes the transfer of about 1200 vehicles which will now […]

system? Serjeant at the bar Last week the British Home Secretary, Jack Straw, found himself under the political cosh. He introduced a Bill to restrict the right to trial by jury such that in a range of cases the choice of a jury trial would be given to the presiding magistrate. The Bill passed through […]

Bob Woolmer >From the Pavilion I really get upset when I hear and read bickering within my own game. I was going to use the words “petty bickering” to start, but when it gets to the level of the president of the United Cricket Board (UCB) resigning, then petty goes out of the window and […]

Andy Capostagno Golf It’s nearly February and the major golf tours around the world have shaken off their winter torpor and are heading towards full swing. But a few big names have stayed on in South Africa for this week’s Dimension Data Pro-Am at Sun City. Defending champion Scott Dunlap is absent, having earned his […]

Barry Streek The Minister of Education, Kader Asmal, has lodged a formal complaint with the Public Protector, Selby Baqwa, about endemic inertia in the government and suggested “massive tutoring” of state officials to make them more efficient. “Generally, my feeling is that there is a pervasive culture of delay in the government, largely inherited from […]

Matthew Krouse The fake stones that built Sun City, its intentionally haphazard forestry and its pretentious pools that look like ruins are part of the general lie it lives. Here, in the sad old North-West province – we’re supposed to pretend – a playful, lost African civilisation put down roots that can now be explored […]

DEMOCRATIC Party Chief Whip Douglas Gibson said on Friday that statements to the effect that the DP will support the draft Firearms Control Bill in its present form are unmandated and factually incorrect. It was reported earlier this week that the party had decided to support the legislation. Gibson said in a statement that the […]