"If elephants didn’t exist, you couldn’t invent one. They belong to a small group of living things so unlikely they challenge credulity and common sense," Lyall Watson writes in an opening chapter titled "Seeing the Elephant".
<b>Kitty and the Prince </b>
<i>by Ben Shephard (Jonathan Ball)</i>
<b>THE LONG SILENCE OF MARIO SALVIATI </b>by Etienne van Heerden (Sceptre) The latest novel by one of South Africa’s foremost writers, translated into English and now in paperback. The deaf-mute painter Mario, said Christopher Hope in his <i>Guardian</i> review, is "a compelling and moving creation". Van Heerden, said Hope, "may have invented a new form" – not so much magic realism as "marijuana realism".
Readers young and old across the world are waiting anxiously for the new Harry Potter book, out on June 21. Our correspondents fly across the world on their magic brooms to find out how popular Harry really is.
Telecommunications operator Telkom (TKG) signed a new three-year substantive wage agreement with the Communications Workers’ Union (CWU) on Friday.
South African Tourism Minister Mohammed Valli Moosa has threatened to introduce a quota system to ensure that more black tour guides are hired in the tourism industry, according to the government news service BuaNews.
Agreement on the Growth and Development Summit went to the wire on Thursday as business, labour and the government tried to put the final touches to a pact binding them to a set of measures to kick-start growth and employment.
President Gnassingbe Eyadema of Togo, Africa’s longest serving ruler, has won a further five years in power in an election denounced by the opposition as being riddled with fraud.
South Africa’s Commission for Employment Equity on Thursday began the roll-out of its program of on-site visits, with a visit to the head offices of information technology company IBM South Africa to monitor the implementation of employment equity in the workplace.
From where I’m sitting, Cape Town sounds like a gay, murderous hell. I certainly wouldn’t encourage my children to go there.
In times of miserable returns‚ like now, doesn’t it make sense to invest in a vehicle that guarantees returns? Not before you’ve looked at what is guaranteed and how, and what it costs to extricate yourself from the product.
South Africa’s politicians, many orthodox economists and our financial press continue to ignore the inescapable reality that full employment, as we knew it in the past, will not return.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=15537">’Where are the jobs?'</a>
President Thabo Mbeki rounds off his weekly missive on the African National Congress website with the apt call: "What our country needs is substance and not shadows, facts instead of allegations…" Precisely!
Such is now common fare on our television screens, an ever increasing depiction of violence and human degradation, a wallowing in blood- soaked medical detail, the prying inquisitions of society’s victims, the whole grisly menu.
South African steel maker Iscor (ISC) said on Thursday it had obtained a court interdict preventing the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa) from engaging in unlawful protest activities.
British human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell is to meet with the South African High Commissioner to the UK, Lindiwe Mabuza, on Friday to urge the South African government to cut electricity supplies to Zimbabwe.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=15337">Rise up Zimbabwe… Friday is D-Day</a>
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=15344">Leon lashes Mbeki on Zimbabwe</a>
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/pd.asp?ao=15314&t=1">Police beat patients in Harare</a>
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/pd.asp?ao=15225">Hundreds held in Zimbabwe strike</a>
South Africa’s official opposition Democratic Alliance says that with less than 48 hours to go to the start of the Growth and Development Summit, every indication is that it will be a non-event.
The <i>New York Times</i> announced on Thursday the resignation of executive editor Howell Raines and managing editor Gerald Boyd, following a major investigation into reporting standards.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=14482">A perfect fit gone wrong</a>
The South African Chamber of Business’ (Sacob’s) Business Confidence Index dropped by 4,4 index points in May to 102.4 from 106,8 in April.
The National Consumer Forum has called for a public commission of inquiry to investigate the recently admitted bungle over the calculation of consumer inflation data.
"Government has wished away its liberation fighters." This is the essence of the article, "The forgotten soldiers" (April 4), based on important research by the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation that focused on the plight of military veterans of the liberation struggle and those of the former South African Defence Force (SADF).
As mid-year approaches the investment industry is bracing itself for a new outbreak of ‘quarteritis’, cautions marketer of the unit trust products, Stanlib.
First National Bank has launched South Africa’s first online retail foreign exchange, enabling prospective overseas travellers to buy their forex and have it delivered to their work addresses during business hours.
South Africa’s Competition Commission on Wednesday criticised the Petroleum Pipelines Bill, stating that in its present form, it was unlikely to accomplish its stated objectives of increasing competition and private sector investment, or promote access to affordable petroleum products.
If there was justice in this world (which there ain’t), Happy Sindane’s story would have been immortalised on the silver screen before many more moons had passed.
Addressing a group of journalists at an event marking the two-year anniversary of the Medecines Sans Frontieres’ antiretroviral therapy pilot programme in a Cape Town township, 21-year old Aids patient Babalwa Tembani is nowhere near ready to die.
After a seven-year wait, Swazis were able to glimpse a draft of a new national constitution and found that while governing power remains firmly in the hands of the monarchy, the kingdom’s ruling authorities have bowed to domestic and international pressure and acknowledged the existence of human rights.
Malegapuru Makgoba is quite right when he says that universities have tended to lag behind since 1994 "instead of actually driving societal transformation".
The most difficult aspect of the June 7 Growth and Development Summit is that it necessitates… the holding of a summit.
Bob Geldof has called on Ethiopia’s leaders to be tested for HIV/Aids to prove their commitment to combating the pandemic.
Authorities arrested Zimbabwe’s opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, on Monday, vowing to crush the launch of anti-government demonstrations the opposition hopes will mark the most significant challenge yet to President Robert Mugabe’s decades long rule.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=15073">Harare quiet as Zimbabwe braces for mass action</a>
The National Department of Public Works (NDPW) and the South African Breweries (SAB) have joined forces to implement <b>The Clean and Green Programme</b> in seven provinces throughout the country.