Staff Reporter

A cursory glance at international market indices leaves one with a feeling that the world is an unfair place. While South Africa is repeatedly told that our economy has withstood world market upheavals better than any other — including the economies of the United States and Europe — our markets are faring badly compared to theirs.

"Personally I’m curious as the rand slides down and back towards equality with the dollar, as to why local prices haven’t dropped accordingly. Oil is now cheaper to buy, yet I don’t see fuel prices dropping for the public, and ditto basic foodstuffs." Ian Fraser investigates this and other pressing matters … like Scientology’s prison camps and the price of MP3 players.

A few weeks back, and with a sense of deep satisfaction, I watched television coverage of one Hoosain Mohamed being sent to prison. He was the attorney from hell who ripped off several millions from road accident funds meant for penniless victims. Mohamed’s prey were the naive people of shackland.

One of the most shameful events in modern African politics occurred on a weekend in March 2002 when President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe cheated his people of their most basic right — the right to choose who they want to be ruled by. Zimbabweans must stop moaning and take responsibility for their own liberation, says Mondli Makhanya.

When Nelson Mandela took his seat as the first democratically elected president of South Africa at the opening of Parliament in Cape Town in May 1994, I had the rare privilege of being an official gatecrasher in the president’s box, in an upper gallery to the left of the speaker’s chair.

President Thabo Mbeki, calling for a Growth and Development Summit last year, announced that the summit would seek to "address the urgent challenges facing us in the economy and build an enduring partnership in which all of us can lend a hand in building a prosperous South Africa".

An affidavit by apartheid spy Vanessa Brereton, aka agent RS 452, does not answer questions which have been raised at the Hefer commission about the origin of intelligence reports ascribed to her. But it does direct a litany of allegations against Karl Edwards, her former handler and alleged lover.

Zimbabwe’s ruling Zanu-PF holds its annual conference in the southern city of Masvingo on Thursday, but has ruled out any debate on the issue of a successor to President Robert Mugabe. "If there are people who wish succession to dominate the agenda, we are yet to find out how they will do it," said a Zanu-PF official.

The decision by an African head of state to exclude Zimbabwe from the Commonwealth summit in Abuja is the heaviest diplomatic setback yet suffered by Mugabe and a graphic token of his growing world isolation. It coincides with the IMF taking steps to expel Zimbabwe because it is failing to get to grips with its economic meltdown.

"We take water for granted and it is time to stop taking it for granted. It is not infinitely accessible to us and it has an impact of every area of our lives," says UN water expert Stephen Donkor. He spoke to Irin about plans ahead of a pan-African conference on water utilisation this month.

The bevy of government ministers who lined up for the launch of this year’s Sixteen Days of Activism against Gender Violence campaign is a welcome sign that the gross violation of women’s rights has finally registered on the political agenda.
Unfortunately, the link between gender violence and the twin scourge of HIV/Aids has not.

Le Quartier Français, based in Franschhoek in the winelands, has taken the highest honours in <i>Wine Magazine’s Top 100 Restaurants in South Africa 2004</i>, winning first place for the best chef in South Africa and first for the best service in South Africa.

BMI-TechKnowledge has announced the publication of its South African Internet Services report, which has highlighted a stable and mature internet market. Analyst Iain Machanick said that industry consolidation has meant that service providers’ success will be determined by the value and service offering to the end users.

Last week <i>ThisDay</i> made use of its front page to lament the fact that it is getting shafted by its opposition, who are preventing the newspaper "from using Johannesburg’s lampposts" for advertising its edition.

The popular Vodacom Caddie Foundation is threatened with extinction, following the decision by the sponsor not to renew its six-year contract. This innovative and socially responsible initiative by Golfcom, a division of Altmedia, created a sense of pride and developed career paths for a previously ignored section of the sporting world.

It must be something in the stars. Show business is going through incredible upheavals. Michael Jackson dragged into a Los Angeles police station in chains; leading Bolshoi ballerina Anastasiya Volochkova fighting through the Russian courts to be reinstated after being dropped from the starry line-up.

Last week, economist Nicoli Nattrass of the University of Cape Town argued that without a rise in taxation one cannot call the budget social democratic. Has Trevor Manuel presented an election budget, or does it reflect a renewed commitment to social democracy?

It is common for employers to go to court to interdict an unprocedural strike, but a precedent-setting case in Durban shows the Labour Court will also protect workers when management breaks the rules — in this case by using the stratagem of firing strikers for "operational reasons".