Staff Reporter

FRIDAY, 10.30AM: TRADE on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange was subdued on Thursday amid caution following a weak opening on Wall Street. Traders mostly selectively picked up blue chips, pushing the industrial index up, while financials continued their recent recovery. The industrial index recorded a 14-point rise to 9 032, helped by renewed expectations of an […]

FRIDAY, 5.00PM ZIMBABWE’S Supreme Court delivered a stunning blow to President Robert Mugabe’s ruling Zanu(PF) party today, by preventing the party from taking an entire state subsidy intended to encourage multi-party democracy. For the past five years, the Zanu(PF) dominated parliament has voted a sum of Z$225-million (about R94 million) to itself, on the grounds […]

In the week that Dullah Omar rejected decriminalising relationships between gay men, Ferial Haffajee attended a street wedding The lobola had been paid. The blue and white striped tent was up. And as good old tradition dictates, the bride was three hours late. But when she emerged from her Meadowlands home in Soweto last Saturday, […]

Ed Vulliamy Stamp collecting has never been as sizzling a preoccupation as it is now, since drummer and Massachusetts stamp gallery owner Don Palazzo had the idea of raising revenue in Third World countries by issuing entertaining postage paraphernalia. The hobby has suddenly exploded along with the fear of the eruption of the volcano in […]

I have always considered (and still do) the Mail & Guardian to be among the best newspapers – not just in Africa, but in the world. I was thus disappointed in the manner that the newspaper handled the issue around the late Professor Sam Nolutshungu. At first, like everybody else who had read the articles […]

FRIDAY, 1.00PM THE Lagal Aid Board says it will rescind its decision to withdraw assistance to Allan Boasak, and will give him an opportunity to make representations about future aid. The decision came after an urgent application to the Pretoria High Court by Boesak on Thursday, in which he challenged the board’s August 11 decision […]

Cape Town’s olympic bid captured the spirit of the city but not the continent, writes Ferial Haffajee It was almost as if the the spin-doctors and mega-marketeers responsible for selling Cape Town’s Olympic bid took a late swig of Energade to boost a flagging campaign. Or it may have been the countdown to decision day […]

A letter leaked to the media accusing top Transnet executive Macozoma of theft has proved false, reports Ann Eveleth Suspended Transnet executive director Joe Ndhlela’s allegation linking the transport parastatal’s managing director, Saki Makozoma, to the theft of containers from the Port of Durban are false, according to police and justice officials. Ndhlela’s lawyers leaked […]

Bridget Hilton-Barber : Unspoilt places Have you noticed how we seem to be caught in the frenzied grip of an Action Adventure trend? You’ve got no cred unless you rafted raging whitewaters, conquered some lofty peak or flung yourself off a silly bridge with an elastic band tied around your ankle? It’s impossible to go […]

South Africa is encountering an influx of illegal immigrants who constantly plunge it in a state of crisis and instability. Concern has been expressed by prominent figures, the defence force, vendors, the unemployed and parents. The influx is destructive. It ushered in an era of substance abuse and internecine violence due to drug trafficking and […]

FRIDAY, 2.00PM CAPE Judge President Gerald Friedman on Friday urged the National Party and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to seek an out of court settlement in the interests of national reconciliation. He was speaking at the start of an NP court application to dismiss TRC deputy chairman Alex Boraine and declare that commission chairman […]

FRIDAY, 3.30PM SEPARATISTS on the Comoro island of Anjouan have put up such fierce resistance to government troops that the OAU has urged the government to withdraw. OAU special envoy Pierre Uere has urged the government to pull out its 300 troops after at least 30 were killed in an aborted invasion attempt that began […]

Madeleine Wackernagel : Taking stock Fresh from its $16-billion rescue mission in Thailand, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is liberally dishing out advice to other countries to prevent similar debacles elsewhere. Currency crises have a tendency to be contagious. But in the case of South Africa, it is being over-zealous. Take the forward dollar market. […]

Cape Town’s privileged position as the home of Parliament is slipping away, writes Marion Edmunds Management consultants KPMG have dashed Cape Town’s chances of keeping Parliament with a finding that the cost of moving the country’s administration to Cape Town would be a staggering R23,5-billion. The African National Congress’s pro-Gauteng lobby will use this figure […]

Steve Morris : Rugby There are a number of factors that have shown themselves as the Currie Cup has emerged from the hangover of Tri-Nations tests and Super 12 disappointments. Not the least of these is the competitive edge that has been added to the less fashionable sides such as Boland, South Western Districts, Border […]

Cape Talk is more than 702-speak, says the programme manager in an interview with Hazel Friedman Radio 702 – South Africa’s most successful commercial broadcaster – has spread its proverbial wings to the land of the mountain, sea and celebritydom in the form of Cape Talk Radio. And spearheading the launch which takes place on […]

Sarah Baldwin : Gymnastics The era of the waif in gymnastics, epitomised by the sprite-like form of Nadia Comaneci and a chorus line of other Tinkerbells, could be over. The world championships in Lausanne this week are the first at which female competitors will have had to have turned 16 during the year of competition. […]

Feng shui seems to be a New Age fad, but it was the cornerstone of the development of Chinese science, medicine and architecture, writes Lorraine Pace Brandishing mirrors and wind-chimes, plants and decorative items, the Chinese practice of feng shui promises health, wealth and happiness. But much of the information on feng shui borders on […]

CAPE TOWN’S noisy street party came to a stunned halt shortly before 7.00PM as the city learnt that it had lost the Olympic Games for 2004 to Athens.

Lizeka Mda `On the available evidence the death cannot be attributed to any act or omission amounting to a criminal offence on the part of any person,” ruled the magistrate in the Steve Biko inquest in November 1977. All he had determined was that the cause of death was indeed brain injury. Now, 20 years […]

Gwen Ansell A father who banned you from playing, and a childhood accident that lopped off the tips of a couple of fingers don’t sound like a promising start for a jazz musician. Bheki Mseleku in tomorrow’s (Saturday, September 6) final Joy of Jazz concert at the Pretoria State Theatre proves how remarkably you can […]

Brenda Atkinson : Performance Carfax, industrial home to Johannesburg’s edgily paranoid and elegantly pierced, was an apt venue for last week’s one-off performance by intellectual techmeisters, The Sunless Ensemble. Conceived, written and directed for Sunless by academic James Sey, the performance, titled Symphony of the Invisible City, is an epic hard-core venture into the pleasures […]

The Angella Johnson Interview Dingaan Thobela, two times boxing world champion and all-round Mr Nice Guy, has a rather unusual day job. When he’s not in the ring trying to knock people out, he’s putting them in the ground. The world-famous Rose of Soweto moonlights as a funeral director. Not that you’d think, looking at […]

Sechaba ka’Nkosi With less than two weeks to go before the annual meeting of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu), there is growing uncertainty within its membership about its future and the influence the federation still has in South African politics. In the rapidly changing political and economic climate, it is being reduced […]

Dance music stars Boom Shaka look set to sever ties with the label that created them. Maria McCloy asks them why Boom Shaka are arguably South Africa’s most popular dance music outfit. They emerged as stars in the stable of Kalawa records, home to the likes of Brothers of Peace, Trompies and Bongo Maffin. But […]

FRIDAY, 11.00AM: A DRAFT affirmative action Bill requiring every business to have an affirmative action policy will be published for comment before year’s end, Labour Minister Tito Mboweni told the Cape Chamber of Commerce and Industry on Thursday. The Bill will follow the Malaysain affirmative action model rather than the American one, in that it […]

murder Peta Thornycroft The shotgun allegedly used to kill David Webster was thrown into a Nylstroom dam by former policeman Ferdi Barnard. This information will be used against Barnard when he goes on trial charged with a clutch of crimes, including the 1989 murder of Webster, an activist and anthropologist at the University of the […]

PRISON SHIPS ON HOLD EVEN though the correctional services department has decided against buying ships for use as jails, private companies could still be asked to tender for operating floating prisons, correctional services commissioner Khulekani Sitole said on Friday. He said after viewing two hulks for sale in Ukraine and a British floating prison, the […]

Swapna Prabhakaran A restaurant in the upmarket Johannesburg suburb of Rosebank has been accused of racism after five black men were barred at the doors by the bouncer. The men had come from Namibia and Zimbabwe to do a course in sports journalism and made their way to the Storyville resturant, accompanied by a white […]

The energy ministry proposes to stop exports to boost local employment, writes Mungo Soggot The Minister of Minerals and Energy, Penuell Maduna, wants to cut or stop altogether the export of diamonds from South Africa – a strategy that would severely threaten the survival of the De Beers diamond cartel. The minister’s special adviser on […]

Ferial Haffajee and Mukoni T Ratshitanga The African National Congress appears set to take a whopping loss on its Shell House headquarters, which it will vacate at the end of September. In a depressed property market, brokers suggest the 22-floor building could go for half of the R20-million the ANC paid for it in 1990. […]

The spectre of institutional racism haunts two events, the death of Sam Nolutshungu and Wits academic William Makgoba’s recounting of his `victimisation’ A sudden bout of amnesia must have gripped polemicist Jon Qwelane as he sat down last month to attack the media’s coverage of the late Professor Sam Nolutshungu. Under the headline “Once again, […]