Rapid growth in income inequality threatens the world’s economic future as the skills gap increases in the West. Edward Balls reports from London The scourge of inequality is back on the political agenda. Reports published over the past few weeks have highlighted the rapid growth in wage and income inequality and the threat this poses […]
Allegations of secrecy have been levelled against Radio Highveld’s favoured bidder. Barbara Ludman reports THE multimillion-rand fight for ownership of Radio Highveld Stereo has moved from merely monetary issues to questions of ideology. With Highveld licence hearings scheduled for the first week in September, the second-highest bidder, Worldwide Consortium, has accused the frontrunner of keeping […]
GWEN ANSELL pays tribute to the man who introduced the sounds of West Africa to the world THE king of highlife is dead. Emmanuel Tetch (ET) Mensah, trumpeter, saxophonist, bandleader, composer (and, in periods of musical layoff, a practising pharmacist), has died in his birthplace of Accra, Ghana, at the age of 77. Highlife music […]
Tebello Radebe All electricity users will ultimately pay for the more than R1,3-billion apartheid rent boycott power bills at some point, says Kevin Morgan, legal adviser to the electricity regulator, following the agreements reached by Eskom and debt-ridden local authorities. “Eskom, being a state-owned enterprise, can only write off the debts against income from what […]
Artist Brett Murray brings a piece of Cape Town’s `generous cultural spirit’ to Johannesburg this weekend. He spoke to HAZEL FRIEDMAN THE boy with the golliwog hair and dangling earrings smiles impishly at the lens, his teeth and the whites of his eyes made more luminescent by the contrast with blackened, cherubic cheeks. This is […]
Stephen Bates in Brussels Jean-Luc Dehaene, the Belgian prime minister, has found himself cast in the unlikely role of the absolutist French monarch Louis XIV by angry compatriots and press cartoonists since he ruthlessly seized control of the economy in an attempt to prepare the country for the European Monetary Union. The man spurned by […]
Although the business confidence index has dropped significantly, Sacob believes the longer-term outlook is positive, writes Madeleine Wackernagel The sharp reversal in the business confidence index for July came as no surprise, says Dr Ben van Rensburg, chief economist of the South African Chamber of Business (Sacob), which compiles the monthly measure. “Inflation, interest rates […]
Anthony Egan PASSIVE RESISTANCE 1946: A SELECTION OF DOCUMENTS compiled by ES Reddy and Fatima Meer (Madiba Publishers/Institute for Black Research, R75) When the government of Field-Marshal Jan Smuts first announced a new Bill — what was later passed into law as the Asiatic Land Tenure and Indian Representation Bill in June 1946 — little […]
Nthato Motlana’s high-profile team that is supposed to be raising R300-million for higher education has been hit by criticism, reports Philippa Garson THE high-powered team of academics and business executives set up by the education department last year to raise money for needy students has not yet raised a cent. Some members of the Eminent […]
Kevin Mitchell says Atlanta’s juggernaut has left the Olympic caravan in need of urgent repair for Sydney 2000 and finds a growing belief that it can only move ahead with confidence if Juan Antonio Samaranch is ousted TO STUTTER and then triumph, as Michael Johnson did, surely defines the resilience and the brilliance of the […]
Credit Lyonnais may become the latest in a series of botched sell-offs, reports Alex Duval Smith from Paris If rumours are confirmed that the French government is preparing a rush privatisation of the Credit Lyonnais (CL) bank, it will be the latest in a long line of sell-offs motivated more by desperation than design. The […]
Bronwen Roberts A special session of the Eastern Cape legislature was convened this week to look at ongoing charges of corruption and maladministration. Whenever the Eastern Cape government faces another scandal involving internal corruption, officials emphasise it is because of their own efforts that corruption is being exposed. The implication is that the government is […]
To become globally competitive, South Africa’s marketers have to be innovative, argues Hunt Lascaris TBWA director Paul Bannister The poor state of the rand is a reminder of the strength of incoming competition. Foreign competition’s marketing budgets are more powerful as they are backed by a much stronger dollar. Marketing budgets for global brands targeting […]
ANC leaders are not backing Free State premier Patrick `Terror’ Lekota in a fight against corruption, reports Rehana Rossouw Free State premier Patrick “Terror” Lekota has exposed abuse of almost R6-million of public money. A Mail & Guardian investigation has found that some of the money was allegedly spent by senior members of the provincial […]
Jacquie Golding-Duffy Labour Party leader Tony Blair is expected to address the Commonwealth’s biennial conference to be held in South Africa in October. Chairperson of the organising committee and Cape Times editor Moegsien Williams says the conference is significant as it is the first time since South Africa walked out of the Commonwealth in the […]
Angella Johnson It would seem that not even the national police commissioner is safe from South Africa’s tidal crime wave. Thieves broke into one of George Fivaz’s offices last weekend and made off with two large fax machines and a kettle. The bold-faced crooks marched into what should be one of the countries’ safest buildings […]
Is Felicia Mabuza-Suttle’s personality preventing her show from attracting advertisers? Jacquie Golding-Duffy reports on the politics behind the `high-risk’ programme The Felicia Mabuza-Suttle show, regarded by black audiences as the “African version of Oprah Winfrey”, has failed to attract advertising despite its popularity. Although one of the most successful SABC local television talk shows, the […]
Cape Town gang buster leader Muhammed Ali “Phantom” Parker is not the caped crusader his nickname suggests, but a man who has tasted death and is prepared to die for the cause he believes in, friends and relatives said this week. Parker was shot in the chest at the siege of gang leader Rashaad Staggie’s […]
Facing the first of four Tests against the fearsome All Blacks and with a long list of injuries, the Springbok coach is justified in feeling a trifle nervous, but there is some comfort for him as well RUGBY: Jon Swift THERE has always been something special about a meeting between South Africa and New Zealand […]
The Mark Gevisser Profile One Free State, one Lekota? `One Free State!” yells Councillor Bazooka Ma-baso, working the crowd for Comrade Terror. “One Lekota!” the overflowing classroomful of Mangaung residents yells back, on cue. The chant, first heard in Welkom a week or so ago, is moving like tumbleweed across the Free State’s plains as […]
The Kerzner/Holomisa imbroglio gives ground for concern about the thin fabric of our still-fragile society. The issue of corruption, while troubling, is not the most worrying factor. It is rather the effect a succession of these sorts of rows is having on the character of the ruling party. South Africa has much to be grateful […]
Arnold Schwarzenegger is 49 and still conquering. Undaunted, ANDREW WORSDALE tackles his new film, Eraser AS a child growing up in Graz, Austria, Arnold Schwarzenegger was encouraged by his father to become a soccer player. Soon enough, however, the teenager discovered that his true passion was weight-lifting. Five years later, at the already bulging age […]
Tebello Radebe The stage is set for powerful foreign interests to play an increasingly dominant role in the domestic air travel industry — first came South African Airways’ (SAA) link-up with Lufthansa, then the Comair-British Airways (BA) franchise deal, and now it is the Virgin Airlines and Sun Air talks. Virgin Airlines’ South African representative […]
The misguided choice of coal-based technology is limiting a potentially booming sector, reports Lynda Loxton Plastics and chemicals giant Polifin upset many manufacturers when it managed to persuade the Board on Tariffs and Trade to slap anti-dumping duties on polymer (plastic raw materials) imports. But while many ranted and raved about “high-handed measures to reduce […]
In contrast to The Felicia Mabuza-Suttle Show, Dali Tambo’s People of the South is regarded as an entertaining talk show which does not dwell on politics and is more “light-hearted”, says television analyst Don Seokane. People of the South’s ratings are highest among Afrikaans-speaking audiences, pulling in 11ARs. According to Seokane, People of the South […]
Mail & Guardian Reporter THE white, male edifice of the South African judiciary sustained another blow this week with the announcement of three new women judges. The three, attorney Kathy Satchwell, Geraldine Borchers, SC, and Vivian Niles-Duner, will bring to seven the number of women on the Bench. They will join the small club which […]
Mungo Soggot reports on a bizarre supreme court case against the dog squad which has cost the taxpayer about R60 000 THE police dog squad has spent about R60 000 of taxpayers’ money challenging allegations that it stole a design for a dog kennel despite a supreme court judgment against it last year which found […]
Ann Eveleth Three policemen facing murder charges in connection with the Christmas 1995 Shoba-shobane massacre of 19 African National Congress supporters are back at work in neighbouring Nkulu ward, police confirmed this week. Sergeants Bekeni Mngadi, Muzuvukile Ngeleka and Joseph Zulu were suspended from their posts at the Izingolweni police station in May after their […]
Briton Angella Johnson The attorney general’s office in Pretoria is seeking the extradition from the United Kingdom of a Briton charged with murdering two black men at a neo-Nazi training camp near Heidelberg. Tyrone Chadwick, who jumped bail last year and is believed to be living in the UK, was expected to stand trial later […]
THEATRE: Hazel Friedman IF there’s one conclusion to be drawn from On My Birthday, Aubrey Sekhabi’s play about domestic violence, it is this: while noble causes and educational initiatives may go together like a horse and carriage, they can also make for pretty dodgy theatre. All too often, the well-intentioned playwright-cum- sociologist reduces life’s twists […]
Tom Petruno For all the anguish on Wall Street in July over corporate earnings, here’s the tally so far of second-quarter reports: 57% were above expectations, 16% were as expected and just 27% were below expectations. So where’s the big profit problem that helped trigger the stock market’s slump last month? That’s what Wall Street’s […]
If Bantu Holomisa had heeded President Mandela’s appeal that he apologise, his sacking could have been avoided, writes Gaye Davis PRESIDENT Nelson Mandela tried to persuade axed deputy minister of environmental affairs and tourism Bantu Holomisa to apologise for remarks he made about Public Enterprises Minister Stella Sigcau before the truth commission, saying this would […]