Staff Reporter

BODY LANGUAGE David Cohen ‘There were five of us, all first-time fathers, having a drink one night when a beautiful woman walked by. I looked up and mumbled ‘sex’. Then someone else said: ‘I remember sex.’ Then it came out. When did you last have sex? Four months ago? One father hadn’t done it in […]

SERJEANT AT THE BAR The struggle of Rastafarian Gareth Prince to be admitted as an attorney has prompted three separate judgements from the Constitutional Court. This division between a majority of five and the minority of four (apparently two judges did not sit in the case) arguably provides a more interesting example of the different […]

analysis Charlene Smith If there is one thing South Africans understand it’s defiance. Civil disobedience is as natural to our psyche as breathing. The African National Congress tutored South Africans in defiance in the 1940s and 1950s. In the 1980s they upped the stakes to make the land ungovernable. Civil resistance is building again in […]

Melinda Silverman and Barbara Ludman Change is pain or it is if you’re a Virgin Active member trying to navigate around your newly renovated gym. Members felt the burn last year when the new owner cancelled contracts and increased the fees; but despite threats of lawsuits and the flight of two-thirds of the members, the […]

Disgraced Department of Defence procurement chief Shamin “Chippy” Shaik has been let off with a slap on the wrist after his earlier conviction on disciplinary charges of misconduct. Shaik was convicted a fortnight ago of leaking confidential documents. The disciplinary inquiry, headed by Zam Titus, outgoing Director General in the Department of Provincial and Local […]

The vast majority of health MECs are in favour of a rapid roll-out of nevirapine, but the minister will play a pivotal role in the final decision Belinda Beresford and Jaspreet Kindra The government looks set to buckle under remorseless internal and external pressures and allow pregnant women country-wide access to the drug that could […]

In respect of the rapid decline in the value of the rand in November and December one is surprised that no mention is made by South African economists and analysts that the decline commenced on the first trading day after Dimension Data wrote off $3,5-billion of investments in the United States. In the wake of […]

Getting the good stuff Riaan Wolmarans It’s a shame to see how often artists (or their money-hungry record companies) bring out a best-of compilation after the artist has only had two or three hits off, say, two albums. Thankfully there are worthy exceptions to this rule. Out now is Every Now and Then:The Best so […]

Once again, the M&G has excelled at using sensational headlines to denigrate our ministers. Did Mungo Soggot and Nawaal Deane feel conflict when they wrote their conflict of interest story (“Diamonds, the tiara and the minister”, January 25)? Do they know Minister of Minerals and Energy Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, what she has done for our country, […]

David Macfarlane Top executives at the country’s largest channel for funding to non-profit organisations, the National Development Agency (NDA), are apparently flouting the agency’s own funding procedures. And, while NGOs serving South Africa’s poorest citizens struggle to remain afloat as the NDA continues to be chronically unable to disburse funds at its disposal effectively, the […]

A US organisation has launched a fundraising initiative to save Africa’s animals Fiona Macleod An ambitious fundraising project in the Kruger National Park is calling on the support of environmentalists opposed to the concept that the future of wild animals depends on their ability to pay their way. The project is underwritten by the Humane […]

Robert Kirby on the issue of renaming comes out as a sublime racist who feels that had it not been for whites no one would have progressed or developed. Let me remind him that before Europe and Asia became civilised, most of his ilk were nomads and bandits who killed, robbed and maimed until Alexander […]

Mlambo-Ngcuka orders investigation into controversial price of piece sold to her by diamond dealer Mungo Soggot The Minister of Minerals and Energy Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka has moved to defuse allegations of impropriety over her receipt of a tiara from an influential diamond dealer by donating the piece to an education project. Mlambo-Ngcuka called this week for […]

South Africa will have to overcome a pumped-up home team and a hostile crowd in Kayes Ntuthuko Maphumulo Bafana Bafana re-established their place in African football and regained self-confidence after they out-thought, outmanoeuvred and out-fought the Moroccan team 3-1 in their final African Cup of Nations group match in Segou on Wednesday. Now the South […]

Although Mike Tyson and Lennox Lewis will have to find another venue for their clash South Africa, if Rodney Berman gets his way Las Vegas will be hosting another heavyweight world title fight this month, and that between two South Africans. Former International Boxing Federation heavyweight champion Frans “White Buffalo” Botha will challenge World Boxing […]

Brigitte Salino Eighteen months ago, when opposition to Jrg Haider then leader of the far-right Austrian Freedom party was at its height, Peter Zadek announced that he intended to stage The Jew Of Malta at Vienna’s Burgtheater. It would, he said, be “the biggest provocation you have ever seen”. He was right. Since the Nazi […]

REVIEW David Shapshak Cardscan 600c Amazingly, in the ever-increasingly wired world, not many people send digital business cards. A simple attachment on an e-mail provided you are both using Microsoft’s ubiquitous Outlook all-in-one e-mail and contacts program sends your business card to the e-mail recipient, who can then save it quite easily in their contacts […]

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% […]

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. […]

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 […]

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 […]