Staff Reporter

Jaspreet Kindra Director General of Local Government Zam Titus was sidelined by his minister, Sydney Mufamadi, who believed he lacked the “strategic vision” to steer the department. Departmental and other sources confirmed Titus’s five-year contract, which expired last month, was not renewed because Mufamadi is seeking a director general from outside the department to guide […]

Want a World Cup goalie? Ike Shorunmu can’t get a game anywhere yet he is Nigeria’s number one Ryan Oliver Coach, sorry to bother you, any chance of a word with your goalkeeper? A bit of publicity in England, you never know, can’t do any harm… “Sure, sure,” said the coach, slapping me on the […]

Nawaal Deane The spread of HIV/Aids in South Africa has contributed significantly to the decline in foreign direct investment (FDI), according to BusinessMap’s investor survey released this week. The HIV/Aids crisis has increased the risk profile for investment in the Southern African region, with investors seeking a premium rate of return of 15% to 20% […]

Glenda Daniels New hope for the success of South African civil society’s participation in the world summit on sustainable development emerged this week when the two warring factions left the country for a preparatory committee meeting in New York at the United Nations headquarters. Representatives of civil society from around the world are meeting in […]

Will the city be hit by a series of earthquakes in the next five years? asks Nawaal Deane There is a real threat of significant earthquakes and tremors affecting the Johannesburg-Pretoria region in the near future if deep mining projects being planned in Carletonville go ahead, according to research commissioned by Hannover Reinsurance Company Africa. […]

Kevin Scott Candidate attorney Gareth Prince has launched an attack on the highest court in the country, claiming racist motivation lay behind the decision to reject his appeal to allow Rastafarians to be exempted from the prohibition on cannabis. Prince, who lost the appeal by one vote, says the Constitutional Court’s ruling shows “Africans are […]

It was fun reading Michael Hartnack’s review (“The people vs the elite”, Friday, January 25) of the book on Zimbabwe, Striking Back, to which I contributed a chapter. Hartnack seems stuck in the 1990s, when the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank ruled Harare to the detriment of all but Mugabe, his cronies and […]

in your ear Thebe Mabanga Two recent, poetic ad campaigns have made it to the small screen. The adverts are for Metro FM and Yfm. An interesting feature of the ads is the use of dub poetry as a medium. Both have an uncanny and apparently unintended similarity. With slick dub poetry, both assert black […]

A SECOND LOOK Firoz Osman At the end of negotiations between the Palestinians and Israelis facilitated by South Africa at the Spier Estate outside Cape Town, Saeb Erakat and Yossi Beilin wrote that “it was an inspiring window into the South African experience of negotiated transition and replete with lessons that we believe are relevant […]

Jubie Matlou A woman pushes a wheelbarrow of cement to bricklayers, who are putting the final touches to a three-storey block of flats; a grader rumbles as it digs its way into the ground; kwaito music blasts from a hostel window across the street, and stray dogs wander around looking for left-overs. Such a scene […]

While Jayendra Naidoo was tasked with finding the best deals for the country, he was closely associated with an arms subcontractor Paul Kirk Jayendra Naidoo, the government’s chief negotiator in the R66-billion arms deal, is set to make a small fortune out of the very contracts he brokered on behalf of the taxpayer. Naidoo, a […]

There is no prospect of a split in the tripartite alliance for the foreseeable future, writes Drew Forrest The African National Congress’s relationship with its union and communist allies recalls the marriage at the centre of Edward Albee’s play Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? the din of battle masks the underlying strength of the bond. […]

Sipho Seepe is superficial and contradictory. He accuses the government of failing to deliver while he failed to deliver at Vista University Sebokeng campus. When Seepe assumed the principalship of that campus he promised to “guide the university’s curricular transformation, its social role and its place in the national and international landscape”. He also promised […]

Scientists are looking for funds to save the prints of the largest arthropod known to have existed on Earth Belinda Beresford Claw in claw on the edge of the sand, 260-million years ago giant water scorpions may have danced by the light of the moon on the borders of a primeval South African sea. Their […]

CRICKET Peter Robinson Here’s one for collectors of trivia: who’s the New Zealand cricket coach? Don’t know? The answer is Denis Aberhart who, like South Africa’s Graham Ford and John Buchanan of Australia, had no personal experience of international cricket before being entrusted with his national team. This is not a veiled criticism. There had […]

Rather than bore readers with another rebuttal to Peter Vale, those alarmed by his denigration of the success of South African relations with the United States might consider enrolling in Wits Plus, our university’s programme of evening study for busy people. Courses may not yield simple or easy answers to international challenges facing the nation, […]

Ancient manuscripts, which provide tangible evidence of African scholarship centuries before colonialism, are being rediscovered in this desert town, writes Shamil Jeppie Timbuktu is not a venue for any of the African Cup of Nations games currently being played in Mali. It does not have a sports stadium, not even a green patch to host […]

The festive season was a groundbreaking one for many online merchants, writes David Shapshak From a conventional business perspective, the startling news about Amazon.com last week was not that it unexpectedly made a loss, but that it had so unexpectedly turned a profit. The online bookseller is the ultimate posterboy for the e-commerce revolution; and […]

Thebe Mabanga and Bongani Majola run through a check list of President Thabo Mbeki’s undertakings President Thabo Mbeki will inaugurate the political year next Friday when he outlines the government’s agenda for the year ahead in his annual state of the nation address. How much of what he earmarks for action will happen? A comparison […]

Mike de Kock has propelled himself into a lead of almost R2-million on the trainers’ championship log by reeling in the big feature races during the Cape summer season. On Saturday the likeable Gauteng-based conditioner makes a three-pronged assault on the R1-million J&B Met over 2 000m at Kenilworth that is likely to strike fear […]

PHILIPPE BERNES-LASSERRE, Johannesburg | Wednesday THE economy in South Africa, as other emerging markets, has taken knocks after last year’s attacks in the United States and amid fears of global recession, but the worries here are stagnation in growth and employment rather than an Argentina-style crisis. The rand sharply depreciated against key world currencies in […]

Copenhagen, Harare | Thursday AS Denmark signalled it’s intention to cut aid to Zimbabwe, and other nations maintained by ‘dictators’, Zimbabwe’s Foreign Minister Stan Mudenge slammed the European Union and the Commonwealth for threatening sanctions, accusing the bodies of perpetuating “an archaic colonial relationship”. Mudenge’s comments were the first official government reaction to an EU […]

IRAQ and Sudan aim to set up a free trade zone, Iraqi Trade Minister Mohammed Mahdi Saleh said Monday at the start of a visit by Sudanese Foreign Trade Minister Abdel Hamid Mussa. “The creation of a free trade zone between Iraq and Sudan and the means to expand commercial cooperation between the two brotherly […]

The Inkatha Freedom Party appealed to the Northern Cape government on Wednesday to supply the anti-retroviral drug Nevirapine to state hospitals in the province. “It is morally unjustifiable to withhold anti-retrovirals from pregnant mothers and their unborn children. “Withholding can be seen as a crime against humanity and our future generation,” provincial IFP leader Hennie […]

GHANA’S national flag-carrier Ghana Airways, facing mounting debts and an inability to break even, is on the brink of collapse, the company’s acting chief executive has said. Ghana Airways, which employs 1 400 people, is saddled with $150-million worth of debt, Kofi Kwakwa told the state-owned Daily Graphic in an interview published on Monday. He […]

TONGAAT-Hullett’s Sugar Personnel Services offices outside Tongaat north of Durban have been gutted by a fire, SABC radio reported on Tuesday. The fire broke out just after 5pm on Monday afternoon. It was brought under control, but debris was still falling from the ceiling on Tuesday morning. Parts of the building was also still smouldering. […]

A SEVEN-year-old lioness named Lea who spent the first years of her life in an Italian zoo eating pasta left Rome on Thursday headed for South Africa where she is to be released into a game park. “She’s a real kitten, she even eats pasta,” one of her keepers told the Italian Telenews agency before […]

Lagos | Wednesday A MOB in Nigeria’s main city of Lagos lynched three policemen who killed a bus driver and conductor after they refused to pay extortion money at a police checkpoint, witnesses said on Wednesday. The crowd attacked the policemen late on Tuesday after they shot dead the bus driver and his conductor in […]

PETER CUNLIFFE-JONES, Lagos | Wednesday IN a country where building maintenance has rarely been a priority and concern for public safety often appears minimal, the disaster in Lagos this week was an accident just waiting to happen, analysts said on Wednesday. “I can hardly find a justification for keeping materials of such an explosive nature […]

FIENIE GROBLER and NOMBUSO DLAMINI, Durban | Wednesday KWAZULU-Natal traditionalists are reverting to virginity testing to control sexual behaviour and HIV/Aids but Western doctors and social workers believe it is a degrading custom that encourages the rape of young girls. Gender and human rights activists are increasingly denouncing the practice the public inspection of girls’ […]

Pretoria | Wednesday SOUTH African inflation rose to 4,6% in December compared to 4,3% in November, the government’s statistics service noted on Tuesday, blaming the rise on annual increases in food, health, fuel, transport and power prices. Statistics South Africa said the annual percentage change in the consumer price index CPIX, excluding the interest rate […]