Staff Reporter

Johannesburg | Monday A South African engineer has invented a hair dryer-type decontaminating device to be used in combatting chemical and biological attacks, a domestic newspaper reported on Sunday. The Johannesburg-based Sunday Times said the device is a hand-held turbine jet that uses hot air instead of water to blow clean contaminated surfaces. It weighs […]

Cape Town | Monday SACKED Cape Town mayor Peter Marais used public money to pay for three newspaper adverts in which he trumpetted his return to office, Business Day reports. Marais said in the advertisements (which cost about R16 000, according to the newspaper) that he had been “fully cleared of all speculative allegations”. His […]

THERE should be strong growth in South African car assembly volumes this year, boosted primarily by growth in export volumes, according to London-based Richard Gane, PricewaterhouseCoopers’ global auto industry partner. He said on Wednesday that domestic sales had grown strongly to September but cautioned that “in the mid-term” South Africa’s “fragile economic situation” could be […]

Ntuthuko Maphumulo Former South African captain Hansie Cronje will be kicking himself all the way to the bank after he lost his high court appeal against a life ban from cricket. The failed application means he will have to pay between R200 000 and R300 000 of the United Cricket Board’s (UCB) legal costs. This […]

Gary Cotterell Levi, Diesel, Nike the Y-Generation is branded from head to toe. With money to burn, these 20-somethings present an attractive slice of the pie for banking strategists. But this market is a tricky one. Dino Fifas, MD of Logistix Kids SA, says the youth market has traditionally been costly for banks maintaining thousands […]

NO blows BARRED Sipho Seepe Had it not been for adverts in the media, the recent International Conference on Indigenous Know-ledge Systems: African Perspectives hosted by the University of Venda would have gone unnoticed. Indigenous Knowledge Systems (IKS) refer to intricate knowledge systems acquired over generations by communities as they interact with the environment. It […]

Leslie Tilley looks at whether there are any safe bets left when it comes to investing Forget previous investment strategies: the world economy has entered a new era and in the process pushed aside the financial tenets of the past. The September 11 attack on the United States has caused a paradigm shift in Western […]

THE Federal government in Nigeria has introduced a special food programme which will cost about N6,2-billion ($45-million) in a bid to tackle a possible food crisis in the country, The Guardian reported this week. The programme was set up following the high cost of staple food and the recently released Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) […]

I have rarely been so surprised in my life as when I saw the advertisement in yesterday’s Die Burger under the headline “Wie is die Coconuts”. It is truly ironic to witness the once-proud African National Congress claiming that so-called “brown” people are selling out the Nats to the Democratic Party. What hypocrisy, what political […]

Deon Potgieter South African heavyweight hopeful Corrie Sanders is on the verge of challenging for the biggest prize in world boxing. When Hasim Rahman knocked out Lennox Lewis at Carnival City in April to win the universal heavyweight championship, Sanders watched with a touch of envy. Sanders had previously given Rahman one of his toughest […]

After a week of high tension over the future role of controversial mayor Peter Marais in the Democratic Alliance, matters come to a head at the party’s national management committee meeting on Friday. DA deputy leader Marthinus van Schalkwyk spoke to Marianne Merten Marianne Merten (MM): Is there a war of nerves and words between […]

Drew Forrest The fascinating African National Congress document targeting an “ultra-left tendency” in the labour movement and the South African Communist Party is the latest broadside in a decades-old battle in the South African left over the role of trade unions. It revives conflicts in and outside the union movement in the 1980s between “populists” […]

CHRISTOF MALETSKY, Windhoek | Wednesday THE Namibian government yesterday pumped N$6-million into the Namibian Broadcasting Corporation (NBC) to avert a strike at the national broadcaster. The board, management and Namibia Public Workers Union (Napwu) subsequently announced salary increases of between 5,5% and 14% for the 500-odd employees and the looming strike was officially called off. […]

Rural women say the government has failed them on land reform Tara Turkington Diminutive yet fiery Emily Tjale was one of the first to take the stage at a historic assembly of 250 rural women, who gathered to denounce and mobilise against landlessness in Kimberley at the weekend. Tjale is a member of the community […]

David Macfarlane Fundamental conflicts over teachers’ working conditions remain unresolved, despite the averting this week of a strike that would have disrupted the matric exams now under way. The South African Democratic Teachers’ Union (Sadtu) remains firm in its refusal to sign the public sector wage agreement. And future negotiations involving teachers and the government […]

REVIEW David Shapshak Quicken 2001 Deluxe, about R429 Once Microsoft has its eye on your particular segment of the software market, you might as well pack up your bags and go home, many in the information technology industry believe. Like its now dominant Internet Explorer, through which Microsoft took on Netscape and won, the feeling […]

Born in Trinidad, he had a breakdown at Oxford but went on to build a reputation as a world-class novelist. More recently, his personal life has come under scrutiny, his views have drawn accusations of racism and homophobia, and he has found himself at the centre of a literary feud. Maya Jaggi on an outspoken […]

IRANIAN director Tahimeh Milani’s film “Hidden Half” is among the favourites to take first prize in the Cairo film festival, critics said this week. The woman director’s latest work has been widely applauded and won high praise in Arab newspapers after its screening in the festival which opened on October 9, said Jordanian reviewer Najeh […]

open letter A letter from the International Press Institute to United States Secretary of State Colin Powell Dear Mr Secretary, The International Press Institute (IPI), the global network of editors, media executives and leading journalists, is becoming increasingly dismayed at attempts by the US State Department to influence the flow of news in the Middle […]

Your article “Draft policy for GM foods” (October 5) implies that we should feel safe about this highly contentious technology as we have a genetically modified organisms (GMO) Act in place. The GMO Act came into effect on December 1 last year. But before these regulations were even in place, at least 20% of the […]

Michael Hartnack Zimbabwe’s in-your-face Department of Information was at it again last week, fulminating on everything from first lady Grace Mugabe’s right to keep secret her abysmal London University law exam results, to the alleged conspiracy of whites behind South Africa’s planned deportation of Zimbabwean farm workers. Playing the race card, an unnamed “authoritative source” […]

ATHLETICS Martin Gillingham Let me tell you a true story. There’s this national leader who approaches the president of a global sports body and pleads him to stage his world championships in his country. “But you haven’t got a stadium big enough,” replies the sports boss. “I know,” says the politician, “but if you give […]

HOWARD BARRELL, BARRY STREEK AND MARIANNE MERTEN, Johannesburg, Cape Town | Friday CAPE Town mayor Peter Marais faces expulsion from the Democratic Alliance and the party’s deputy leader, Marthinus van Schalkwyk, will face disciplinary action if they fail to back down in their confrontation with DA leader Tony Leon. Leon is willing to risk the […]

After taking over the leadership of the New National Party, Marthinus van Schalkwyk developed a reputation for pragmatism and common sense. He saved his dying party by taking it into the Democratic Alliance. He also accepted, apparently without complaint, the necessity for Tony Leon who was the strength behind the Democratic Party’s phenomenal increase in […]

Themba Khumalo Mankosiphethe Ntuntuma is an elderly woman. She does not know her own age. She lives in the impoverished village of Qhaka, a sparsely populated village near Port St Johns, Eastern Cape. She has never been employed. Her life has always been misererable. That was until last Saturday when the Department of Water Affairs […]

Kenya proved they aren’t always the whipping boys Peter Robinson Of all the international captains currently tramping through world cricket, easily the most engaging is Kenya’s Maurice Odumbe. Put it this way, if you were planning to throw some steak on the braai and pass a few beers around, then the cricketer to call to […]

Washington wants to keep its friends, reports Hugo Young, but on its terms I do not think that many of us, even now, completely understand what has happened to the United States. We saw the pictures, we know the numbers, we heard the president’s vows to smoke Osama bin Laden out of his cave, and […]

BRITISH Airways (BA) has slashed its fares by as much as 23% for flights between Harare and London during the rest of October and November, the official Ziana news agency said. “British Airways appreciates the financial difficulties being faced by Zimbabweans who wish to travel,” BA marketing coordinator Clare Wingfield told the state-run news agency. […]

With no clear idea of where world markets are headed, and as equity prices fall, fund managers have little to say Neil Thomas As local unit-trust investors start to assess the extent of the knock they took over the third quarter, here’s a quote from United States fund manager John Holden: “It’s very difficult as […]

Ntuthuko Maphumulo Reigning league champions Orlando Pirates were the first team from the southern tip of Africa to have won the continental champions’ league, and they will get their chance again in the next edition of the competition. Former champions Sundowns are representing South Africa for the third time in a row, but their campaign […]

The rand looks unlikely ever to recover Sarah Bullen The fall of the rand is terminally depressing. It is like a light drizzle that just keeps on coming until a particularly bad shower reminds us that it’s actually still raining. South Africans are going to have to face up to the reality of living with […]

analysis Sean Jacobs and Jessica Blatt The terrorist attacks in New York and Washington and the United States retaliation in Afghanistan have resulted in an outpouring of patriotism in the US, among African-Americans as much as anyone else. But the crisis has also put African-Americans in some odd and uncomfortable positions. Recent weeks have been […]