Etrade has a substantial investor education centre. It moves from the basics of investing, how markets work, how to read financial statements, tax basics and advanced investing strategies. (www.etrade.co.za) Tradek offers a fairly comprehensive but less user-friendly guide to investing. (www.tradek.com) etaxes lists upcoming seminars on tax management. But be warned they are all booked […]
After leading the digital music revolution, Napster’s former fans won’t flock back when it relaunches, says Edward Helmore Six months ago anyone with even a casual interest in technology couldn’t avoid Napster. News of the company had moved from the business pages to the front page as the digital music revolution became a cultural phenomenon. […]
whipping boy If the Durban July is to retain its position as South Africa’s premier horseracing event, the organisers will have to take a long, hard look at the flesh on display. It’s not a pleasant job, but someone has to do it. One expert at the July opined bitterly that, with the cigarette makers […]
Right to reply Charles Pillai In response to the article entitled “We are addressing pension problems” (June 29 to July 5), I believe that it is appropriate that I place certain matters in perspective. The writer Jack Monedi, head of communications at the Department of Social Services in North West province begins by focusing on […]
Stephen Gray Silence descends on a festival venue as the last audience heads off. Performers who have displayed all their talents, their heads echoing with the adrenaline of applause, wonder where the next job is. They start planning for the next National Arts Festival. Annual visitors who packed their programmes from breakfast to bed, cheaply […]
Mungo Soggot The heads of the South African Police Service (SAPS) and the Scorpions have been exchanging letters about their strained relationship after fresh claims by police that the elite unit hijacks cases from the men in blue. There has long been rivalry between the Directorate of Special Operations (or the Scorpions) and the police, […]
TENNIS Nicholas Wood in Split Goran Ivanisevic brought Split to a halt on Tuesday. Just over 24 hours after claiming the Wimbledon title, the rank outsider went home to a welcome never seen before in Croatia. A crowd estimated at 150 000 thronged the port as the new champion entered the port by boat, accompanied […]
Sculpture provides an unexpected connection between two cities, writes Clive Chipkin Both Vancouver and Johannesburg began as late-19th century urban settlements that rapidly grew into sophisticated world cities. Both were founded in 1886 and both celebrated their golden jubilees in 1936 with an exchange of greetings between sister cities of the empire. This resulted in […]
David Macfarlane The Eastern Cape Department of Education has spent more than R1-million of taxpayers’ money on a fruitless 18-month campaign to transfer nine teachers against their will to other schools. The Labour Court has now found in favour of the teachers and ordered the MEC for education and the department’s superintendent general to pay […]
Paul Christelis is a South African writer living in London. His first novel, Rabbit Season, is published this week by M&GBooks/comPress. Here we excerpt a childhood flashback The doctor searches all over me, with a magnifying glass, a stethoscope and a small cold hammer. “Now tell me what this feels like?” and he jabs me. […]
The unit trust industry has a lot of work to do if it wants to regain the trust of small investors Neil Thomas The unit trust industry is making much of the relative recovery in the local equities market this year. It’s doubtful, though, that investors bruised by more than two years of unit trust […]
The only arrests at Bredell were for indecent exposure. On Thursday night the squatters were left at the mercy of the elements Evidence wa ka Ngobeni, Bongani Majola and Khadija Magardie The early morning mist hanging over Bredell, Kempton Park, on Thursday made visibility difficult. But when trucks arrived and disgorged a few hundred men, […]
A SECOND LOOK Sean Jacobs and Judith February The recent events at Bredell near Kempton Park illustrate citizens’ growing impatience with the government’s failure to deliver more speedily. The government faces similar challenges of delivery of other basic services such as water, electricity and sewerage. Because of a lack of resources, one of the ways […]
Andrew Botha makes his directorial debut in Pro Musica’s production of Rigoletto. It won’t be ordinary, writes Paul Boekkooi After being involved in more than 60 opera productions in South Africa and internationally, Andrew Botha is confident of breaking with tradition in Verdi’s Rigoletto. “I know there’s a strong buzz around the fact that ‘here […]
A SECOND LOOK Belinda Beresford Poor South Africans can take anti-retroviral drugs to combat HIV as effectively and safely as patients elsewhere in the world, local researchers have proved. A study released this week flies in the face of local and international justifications for withholding antiretroviral drugs from South Africans. Such arguments have included cost […]
A SECOND LOOK Joachim Wehner In its latest submission, the Financial and Fiscal Commission (FFC) presents some valuable recommendations on local government finance. At the same time, however, the commission fails to present concrete figures on the recommended slicing of the fiscal cake. The lack of specificity and seemingly dwindling commitment by the commissioners are […]
Sherilee Bridge Investors spooked by the bloodbath on the global equities markets are being forced to find safer havens for their capital. South African investors have taken so well to the lower risk of the Saitrix 40 a fund that tracks the performance of the JSE Securities Exchange’s top 40 stocks that the unit trust […]
Henrietta Mqokomiso is taking on the City of Johannesburg after she was evicted from her home Nawaal Deane The Legal Resources Centre is preparing a landmark legal battle on behalf of Henrietta Mqokomiso, who was evicted from her house in Alexandra township three weeks ago. The Mail & Guardian reported last month on Mqokomiso’s plight […]
Elvis and John Lennon have monuments, museums and disciples, but Bob Marley’s legacy is less clear. John Aizlewood travels to Kingston to ask his friends and collaborators: what does Marley mean now, 20 years after his death? Native Jamaicans call the administrative district of St Ann, north-west of King-ston, the “Garden parish”. They have a […]
ART Antoinette du Plessis Most frequently, academic literature on the subject of tourist art is concerned with aspects of the production of artefacts for sale to tourists. Less easy to research with any kind of pretence of academic rigour is the other end of the equation the tourist/traveller as patron, as consumer, as communicator. How […]
Thabo Mohlala State prosecutors are to receive huge salary increases backdated to January 1, Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development Penuell Maduna has announced. This year prosecutors protested against their salaries and working conditions by embarking on a series of go-slows, adding to an already deteriorating problem of a backlog of cases across South Africa’s […]
Ngwako Modjadji National Police Commissioner Jackie Selebi is probing allegations of corruption, drunkenness, incompetence and maladministration at the Ennerdale police station, south of Johannesburg. The investigation was launched this week after Ennerdale residents forwarded a complaint to Minister of Safety and Security Steve Tshwete regarding alleged corrupt practices at the police station. Police officials in […]
Ntuthuko Maphumulo “Every game that we play is about winning the three points, prestige and honour,” said Bafana Bafana coach Carlos Queiroz in announcing the squad to face Malawi this weekend in Durban. Since taking over the squad late last year Queiroz has taken every game seriously and he’s not about to change that for […]
In this special report Khadija Magardie opens a window on one of the country’s most dangerous occupations policing, where pressure to fight crime is coming at an increasingly heavy cost There is a claustrophobic yet expansive, rushed yet benign feeling to the onset of early evening in Johannesburg, almost a sense of foreboding. At best […]
Evidence wa ka Ngobeni The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) this week delivered a scathing attack on one of Zimbabwe’s leading cabinet ministers. In Cosatu Weekly the federation accused Zimbabwe’s Information Minister Jonathan Moyo of being an “immature politician”. Moyo criticised Cosatu last week for supporting the two-day strike organised by the Zimbabwean […]
With its judgement in the VW strike case the Labour Appeal Court has sent a strong message to workers Glenda Daniels There will be no reinstatement or compensation for 1 300 dismissed Volkswagen South Africa (VWSA) workers who went on an illegal strike in Uitenhage last year. The Labour Appeal Court has finally brought an […]
The tubers of the elephant ear plant might not look good, but don’t let that stop you from trying them, Andrea Burgener The appearance of the tropical-looking elephant ear plant is familiar to most of us, but less known are the truly wondrous edibles it offers. The populations of South America, West Africa, India and […]
The Australian team crushed England in style, proving Tests can be as much fun as one-day internationals Peter Robinson Just over a week ago England and Australia launched the 2001 Ashes series by scoring 427 for 12 in fewer than 90 overs on the first day at Edgbaston. Of the 12 wickets to fall, six […]
Sherilee Bridge Some bears hibernate longer than just the winter. This is the case in the South African bond market, with bonds constantly flirting with all-time best levels despite the weakness of the country’s currency against the United States dollar. Investors burnt by the sell-off in the equities market may only need to be reminded […]
Paul Kirk A senior Technikon Natal accountancy lecturer who has been found guilty of plagiarism was charged with housebreaking and slapped with a restraining order by the terrified lecturer who blew the whistle on his fake degree. The Mail & Guardian reported in March that Ian dey van Heerden’s PhD in business management was withdrawn […]
Wilhelm Disbergen Party van Ons: Die Homeros Leesboek compiled by Danie Botha (Homeros) No story can grip the reader if there is no honest investment from the writer in the subject matter. With all the writers in this book openly gay and writing for a gay reader, most of the narratives seem at least semi-autobiographical […]
Few people or institutions come out of the Bredell confrontation well. The government and its policies, the Pan Africanist Congress and the ruling African National Congress and its allies have, each in its own way, demonstrated breathtaking disregard for the plight and purposes of the hundreds of families who settled on this stretch of vacant […]