Staff Reporter

Are there any solutions to prevent sophisticated fraud syndicates plundering our credit card accounts? asks Karen Harverson CREDIT cards represent convenience to card holders, big business for banking institutions and increasingly, easy pickings for criminals. Credit card fraud, estimated at millions of dollars a year worldwide, has more than doubled in South Africa this year, […]

SOCCER:Lungile Madywabe AS an international defender Ruud Krol played 83 games for Holland before going to Belgium and Switzerland where he coached Mechelen and Servette. He then went on to become coach of the Egyptian under-23 team and after the success of the youngsters at this year’s All Africa Games in Harare two months ago, […]

South African abolitionists just found an unlikely ally, reports David Beresford OPPONENTS of capital punishment have found a powerful new ally: the country’s police chief, George Fivaz, who has seen the light … not on the road to Damascus, but in Denmark. The possibility that capital punishment – outlawed by the Constitutional Court – will […]

Bill Gates has committed his vision of the future to paper and it will appear in shops around the world today. Bruce Cohen takes a look at Gates’ roadmap to the information LET me state my heresy upfront: I like Bill Gates. I think the founder and chairman of Microsoft is a pretty smart guy. […]

SOUTH AFRICA this week passed the test of religious tolerance after a “misunderstanding” about visas almost blocked a visit by controversial Reverend Sun Myung Moon, “messiah” of the Unification Church. No sooner was Moon allowed into South Africa than his followers showed intolerance of their own. Press photographers were assaulted when they tried to get […]

Change is not new at Eskom, although it faces some novel challenges. Reg Rumney reports PEERING down into the garden of the cavernous three-storey atrium at the centre of the Megawatt Park HQ, with its hanging baskets of greenery, one is struck by the scale of what has been dubbed Eskom’s hanging gardens of Babylon. […]

Ann Eveleth FINANCIAL irregularities of R6.7-million were unearthed by the KwaZulu-Natal auditor general during a check on the former KwaZulu government’s 1992/93 budget, the provincial Public Accounts Committee (PAC) heard this week. Accounts chairman NP MP Tino Volker said Auditor General Chris Foster reported “43 cases of theft and irregularities involving motor vehicles and cash […]

With its huge prize money the Million Dollar can attract top overseas players, but the poorer tournaments on the local tour can’t compete GOLF:Jon Swift THERE IS a feeling of distinct inevitability about the way the professional golf tour in this country is starting to fragment. The Zimbabwean customs holding back golf balls and equipment […]

AND at the end of the week, does it really seem any less important than it did in the instant 1 000-megawatt surge of collective astonishment on Monday night? Absolutely not; indeed if anything, it seems more important rather than less. Re-viewing the interview with the Princess of Wales two things are clear. First, it […]

Barbie dolls and plastic telephones vied with live goldfish in last weekend’s Smirnoff International Fashion Awards. But, in the end, it was the cows’ stomachs that walked off with the prize, reports MALU VAN LEEUWEN ‘IMAGINE your mind is shut away from the real world, you are living in darkness, completely detached. Then, suddenly, the […]

CLASSICAL MUSIC: Coenraad Visser TWO outstanding soloists and an orchestra still inspired by Gerard Korsten’s recent visit marked the first two concerts conducted by Vladimir Simkine, the Russian conductor currently on the podium in front of the National Symphony First Tasmin Little gave a breathtakingly lyrical account of Beethoven’s violin concerto. Her articulation was always […]

Rowan Callaghan WHY did the chicken cross the road? The response in the near future could be “because there were too many chicken slaughterhouses erected nearby”. This could be a reality soon, especially since a new project was launched two weeks ago by the Farmer Foundation to supply rural entrepreneurs with hygienic, portable chicken slaughterhouses. […]

Bronwen Roberts THE South African Association of Municipal Employees (Saame) has sought an urgent meeting with Eastern Cape Local Government MEC Max Mamase following his announcement that several hundred white municipal workers are to be replaced by blacks. Chairman of the Eastern Cape Saame branch Johan Crafford said this week the union is concerned the […]

FORMER Witwatersrand attorney-general Klaus von Lieres und Wilkau, who says he retired because of ill-health earlier this year, is back in harness. He has been retained by a firm of attorneys in Alberton to appear for former KwaZulu policemen who are among the accused in the KwaMakutha trial and will make an appearance in the […]

WHAT happens when Mandela goes? The concern underlying the question becomes even more acute when one considers his performance over the last week. As the president’s stature continues to grow, so does the likely vacuum when he finally and voluntarily bows out of the political arena. Mandela is deserving only of praise for the way […]

A key witness, who could provide explosive evidence in the trial of General Magnus Malan and other officers, is under protection overseas SEVERAL men, including at least one white former officer, are overseas on a witness protection programme and will be key players in the murder trial of General Magnus Malan and his co- According […]

AS rumours multiplied yesterday of the imminent release of Nelson Mandela, the African National Congress in Lusaka said any plan to fly their jailed leader to freedom in another country would be And a representative of the state president’s office in Pretoria said there was absolutely no truth in speculation that an unconditional release of […]

Faces of 1996: We speak to the Standard Bank Young Artist Award winner for theatre Thestre: Matthew Krouse CHEWING heavily on nicotine gum, Lara Foot Newton confesses to being born and bred in Pretoria. “And Pretoria is an identity of its own,” says the 28-year-old winner of the 1996 Standard Bank Young Artist Award for […]

There were good and bad performances from both sides in the first Test in Pretoria and only the weather showed consistent form CRICKET: Jon Swift IT IS HARD to formulate any real opinion of the current series against England when one side has not batted and the other not bowled. Even more so when those […]

Bruce Cohen Way of the dodo THE great guru of electronic media, Roger Fiddler, has sentenced Anton Harber to 10 more years. Fiddler, speaking at a recent conference in Bali, forecast the end of print journalism by the year 2005 and its replacement with electronic “tablets” and other digital media. He says the superior economics […]

CRICKET: Jon Swift For the South African players, playing against the English is a special experience, but beating them would be even better THERE is something very special about playing against England. South African opener Andrew Hudson is just one of the 11 men who face England in the current Test at Centurion Park who […]

Sol Kerzner has severed his links with his South African business just as a police investigation into alleged corruption draws to a close. Louise Flanagan reports UNTOUCHABLE Sun King Sol Kerzner withdrew from his South African company this week as an eight-year-long criminal investigation into allegations of corruption against him drew to a close. Kerzner […]

Although the team will be without many of their foreign-based stars, there will still be some tough competition in the Four Nations tournament SOCCER:Lungile Madywabe POLITICAL turmoil in Africa has for a long time undermined the continent’s ability to fullfil its potential in world sport, especially the world’s number one, soccer, and the South African […]

Niel Bierbaum NATIONAL radio stations have continued to lose audiences at an alarming rate. The figures show that Afrikaans Stereo, SAfm, 5FM and Radio 2000 have all lost listenership over the past six months, continuing a downward trend that began two years ago. Likewise, a number of the African language stations have also lost audience, […]

Worldwide African Investment Holdings has withdrawn its Free-to-Air shareholding to pursue satellite interests, writes Niel Bierbaum WISEMAN NKUHLU’S Worldwide African Investment Holdings has given notice that it intends to withdraw as a shareholder from Quentin Green’s Free-to-Air consortium. According to spokesman Joe Makobe, WWAIH intends to pursue direct-to-home satellite opportunities “rather than waiting for terrestrial […]

With the advent of portable office technology one need never be away from work, reports Leon Perlman NOW that global system’s mobile (GSM) cellular telephony has firmly entrenched itself as a pivotal business productivity tool, a new breed of Virtual Office workers using “Portable Office” technology is beginning to emerge. These “offices” typically consist of […]

ATHLETICS:Julian Drew WHEN the iron curtain was swept aside in Bulgaria in November 1989 with the toppling of Todor Zhivkov’s discredited regime, the athletics career of Rumen Koprivchin crumbled too. Back then when his life and all around him seemed in turmoil he would have given short shrift to anyone who told him that in […]

Whether I live or die is immaterial. It is enough to know that there are people who commit time and energy to fight this one evil among so many others predominating worldwide. If they do not succeed today, they will succeed tomorrow. We must keep on striving to make the world a better place for […]

The SABC is in the midst of a tortuous transition that is testing staff, top management and the board to the limits of patience and endurance, writes Marion Edmunds UNTIL recently, the bust of former Broederbond leader and SABC board chairman Piet Meyer graced the foyer of the SABC in Auckland Park. nnnNobody thought it […]

The government is finally addressing the tertiary education crisis brought on by students unable to pay fees, reports Philippa Garson THE government will contribute a record sum of around R260-million towards a new loans fund to aid needy students next year — ; a sum five times greater than the R55-million set aside by the […]

Niel Bierbaum M-NET has refuted claims by the SABC that it earns 70 percent of its advertising revenue during its unencrypted open window. According to Clare O’Neil, manager of strategic planning and research at Oracle Airtime Sales, which sells advertising on behalf of M-Net, the pay station has “never earned R430-million of advertising revenue in […]

OPERA: Coenraad Visser AS one has come to expect, the Italian Opera Gala presented by the Roodepoort City Opera is something of a curate’s egg. But the good parts are quite simply stunning. Excerpts from eight Italian operas are presented on an open stage, without the aid of props or costumes. But with imaginative direction […]