Karen Harverson Gencor’s Impala Platinum (Implats), the world’s second- largest platinum producer, is looking at projects to increase the amount of platinum it recovers from ore. This is cheaper than increasing the amount of ore The group produces more than a million ounces of platinum a year from both Merensky and UG2 ores. Implats is […]
Dr NS Kekana SOUTH Africa needs a foreign policy which will allow it to emerge as the leader of Africa. It is now a year since a Minister of Foreign Affairs was appointed, but he has yet to point out the direction that should be taken in foreign policy. The failure of the minister to […]
Ann Eveleth Violence monitors have been clamouring for this week’s security force deployments for months now, warning that KwaZulu-Natal was on the slippery slope back to last year’s pre-election chaos. A Markinor report released this week to business leaders said as much, warning that, “the KwaZulu-Natal situation is acute and is beginning to resemble that […]
Ivory Coast’s wing is far from bitter despite his terrible injuries that cast a shadow over the recent World Cup RUGBY: Alex Duval Smith MAX BRITO’s memories of the Rugby World Cup are the same as anyone else’s. But the vision of President Nelson Mandela in Springbok shirt and matching cap, and the spectacle of […]
As most of what is said in parliament goes unreported in the daily media, M&G have offered MPs this slot to raise the issues that concern them. ANC MP Billy Nair kicks off with a call for business to play a greater part in social development. This is an edited version of a speech in […]
Inside Parliament: The onerous committee system, the code of ethics … and the ushers By special arrangement, we feature extracts from Parliamentary Whip, the publication of Idasa’s Parliamentary Information and Monitoring Service Pims MPs are seriously overstretched by the committee system, with some sitting on more than a dozen of these An investigation by Parliamentary […]
Adam Bacher and Shaun Pollock have famous names to live up to but they are playing their own way in Sri Lanka CRICKET: Ahitisham Manerjee THERE is a popular myth amongst Westerners that Sri Lankans, and Asians in general for that matter, are all fanatical about cricket. For their part, Sri Lankans have a similar […]
PHOTOGRAPHY: Ian Tromp MICHAEL MEYERSFELD’S photographs are stylish and technically accomplished. But they cannot be described as innovative or groundbreaking — the claim made for them in the press releases for his show at the Everard Read Gallery. The main claim is that this is an exhibition which will alter the very status of photography […]
DR FANUS SERFONTEIN, surgeon and showman extraordinaire (this is the charming gentleman who responded this week to the Gauteng decision to keep in place a heart transplant moratorium by saying he would celebrate with another transplant), has succeeded in ensuring his own work gets top billing in the media. But it may be more appropriate […]
Karen Harverson reports on the details of Sasol’s plan to enter the coal export market Sasol’s mining division this week released details of its R635-million plan to enter the coal export market through the expansion of capacity at its Twistdraai Colliery and its recent acquisition of a shareholding in the Richards Bay Coal Terminal (RBCT). […]
Smart drugs? Smart drinks? What’s the difference? And are they really a healthy alternative to booze and SMART DRUGS: Justin Pearce TOMORROW’S going to be a heavy day. You’ve got a major presentation and need to be on your toes to give spot- on answers to the tricky questions you’re likely to So whaddaya do? […]
Creativity, melodrama and humour left no room for practicality at the SA finals of the Smirnoff Fashion Awards, writes HAZEL FRIEDMAN THERE was a delicious irony in arriving at the Swartkops Airforce Base — the training ground for South Africa’s Special Forces — and being escorted by khaki-clad recce-types in Casspirs to a fashion show […]
Marion Edmunds TRADITIONAL leaders are targeting President Nelson Mandela in a campaign to get more power before local government elections. Head of the Congress of Traditional Leaders, Chief Patekile Holomisa, sent Mandela a letter last week reminding him of promises made during multi-party negotiations. These included the setting up of provincial houses of traditional leaders […]
A PROFESSIONAL dog-fight is raided and three of the spectators are found to be police officers. The Cape Law Society discovers that 20 of its members have been making under-the-counter payments to public officials and tries to protect them. Nearly two million schoolchildren go hungry, because someone has defrauded the national feeding scheme. A study […]
They are the remnants of an ancient hunter-gatherer society — and they’re still on the move, in carts that carry their homes. Sheep-shearing is their livelihood, and their life is often harsh and violent. But it is also gradually disappearing. Eddie Koch visited the Something about the word “verge” best defines the life that Johanna […]
The Reserve Bank Appearance: Gotham City meets Sun City. Filled with minions performing arcane rituals. Not to be confused with: Your neighbourhood bank. The Reserve Bank is the unfriendly one that makes esoteric statements from afar about gold, foreign exchange, money supply, inflation, and what is left of the Rand. Most famous for? Interrupting Friday […]
Reg Rumney Blame it on the weather and industrial relations on the Preliminary figures show economic growth, as measured by the gross domestic product (GDP) — the total value of all goods and services, adjusted for seasonal factors — slowed to an annualised and real or adjusted-for-inflation 0,8 percent in the second quarter of this […]
Rehana Rossouw Although touted as a model for primary health care in many parts of the world, the Alexandra Clinic is dying for lack of support in South Africa. For more than six decades the clinic has served its underpriveleged community, now numbering about 300 000, caring for up to 500 patients a day. This […]
Anne Eveleth The former State Security Council’s dirty-tricks operation Stratcom (Strategic Communications), was not disbanded in 1991, a former security policeman has Suspended security policeman Sergeant Gary Pollack claims Stratcom became a top-secret structure known by its Afrikaans acronym “Trewits” (Teenrevolusionere Strategie — Counter-revolutionary Strategy). Under pressure to cease political operations following the Peace Accord […]
GOLF: Jon Swift IT IS a measure of the determination, talent and sheer guts of the man that Ernie Els would come back from the bitter disappointment of the US PGA the way he has. To understand that, it is worth recalling one of the oldest maxims of professional golf: you can win the Masters […]
CRICKET: Rupert Cox DESPITE the mixed success achieved in England by South Africa’s Under-19 cricketers, this country’s premier strike bowler Allan Donald admits to being envious of the opportunities provided by such a tour. “We didn’t have an Under-19 side when I started out. I didn’t have much coaching at this age group — I […]
Justin Pearce A last-minute submission by the Western Cape provincial government has delayed an application by the province to the Constitutional Court which will have far- reaching consequences for local elections in the province. The two-week delay has ruled out the chance of a November 1 election in Cape Town. The Western Cape government has […]
Pat Sidley Gauteng’s public hospitals are in a state of crisis. Hospital budgets are strained to breaking point, as the government has cut a whopping R600-million from the province’s health budget and sent the money to historically under-served provinces. Patients crowd Gauteng’s health services from all over the country, but there is no way yet […]
South Africa is mediocre in the world corruption stakes. Reg Rumney reports on a corruption study that finds the country not so guilty South Africa ranks right in the middle of a 1995 corruption ranking of 41 countries. The Corruption Ranking is the result of a study done by Berlin-based Transparency International and the University […]
Justin Pearce A RADIO advertisement for the Mail & Guardian has been disallowed by the SABC on the grounds that it might offend the religious sensibilities of listeners. The advertisement, devised by the ad agency Network, features background music of an angelic choir, and a voiceover that begins: “On the first day his gaze fell […]
Bruce Cohen THEY surfed in by the score. Shyguy, DarkFlame, Chops, Porky, Jack Frost … and they proved that cyberspace can be an anarchic place indeed. Poor Post and Telecommunications Minister Pallo Jordan was swept along in the chaos of Wednesday’s Internet chat show on the Green Paper on telecommunications. The questions came like bullets […]
Your cheque’s in the post … Post Office chairman Donald Masson reassures Bronwen Jones service will definitely get better THE darkest hour before the dawn, is how South Africa’s Post Office chairman describes his own company. Donald Masson has apology down to a fine art. As customers swing the sword of righteous anger, he says […]
Karen Harverson Anglo Alpha may set up a cement factory in Namibia to protect its stake in the 200 000-ton Namibian cement market from Malaysia, which is also considering investing in a factory there. However, the Namibian factory is just one of three options Anglo Alpha is considering to expand its cement-producing capacity, says managing […]
The photographic exhibition Positive Lives: Responses to HIV challenges our most cherished concepts of life and death, writes HAYDEN PROUD AWARD-WINNING South African photographer Gideon Mendel is the focal point and bridge between this country and Britain in Positive Lives: Responses to HIV, a ground- breaking exhibition which enables poignant comparisons to be made on […]
A plan to mine for diamonds along the Limpopo River is causing the biggest environment controversy since St Lucia, writes Eddie Koch ON the banks of the Limpopo River between Messina and the Kruger National Park there lies a stretch of South Africa’s last wilderness — baobab thickets, tropical flood plains, riverine forests, a diversity […]
RUGBY: Jon Swift THE heart of the misguided and unbearable paternalism which has caused so much damage on so many fronts in this country beats strongly in the bosom of South African rugby. It threatens to rend the game asunder in this country. For nowhere else is arrogance of the “papa knows best” syndrome more […]
Ann veleth RECENT moves by Zulu King Goodwill Zwelithini have raised the stakes in his power battle with Inkatha Freedom Party leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi. Zwelithini refused to attend this weekend’s “imbizo” called by the IFP-dominated House of Traditional Leaders to adopt a “Zulu covenant” binding Zulus to the party’s “federalist” constitutional principles. In the past, […]