Gavin Foster BMW’s Z3, Porsche’s Boxster and DaimlerChrysler’s Mercedes-Benz SLK have been around for a couple of years now, while Audi’s TT, a recent arrival, is also proving popular in South Africa. Now there’s a new wave of two-seater sports cars cropping up, headed by Toyota’s mid-engined MR2. Why be sensible? Most people are altogether […]
PAUL KIRK, Durban | Friday The largest private detective agency in South Africa – so large that it threatens to eclipse the government’s law enforcement and intelligence agencies – is being investigated for fraud. More than two weeks ago one of the highest-level investigation teams ever assembled by the South African Police Service raided the […]
The track record of SA’s gold mining companies suggests they will not be able to capitalise on rand weakness David McKay South Africa’s gold mining companies stand to add 2% to 3% to their operating margins following this week’s weakening of the rand. Rand weakness has seen the rand gold price nearing record levels of […]
OVER A BARREL Howard Barrell You, like me, will have heard repeatedly in recent years about how cunning the big pharmaceutical companies are: how adept at manipulating a medical need. The chorus has been particularly loud in the case of the HIV/Aids pandemic. Some have gone so far as to suggest that the HI virus […]
comedy of the week Peter Bradshaw Earthling life forms whose origins lie in spores from outer space it’s an idea that gave us Mission to Mars, Quatermass and Erich von Daniken’s Chariots of the Gods. And it very nearly gave us an ass-kicking action thriller called Evolution, before director-producer Ivan Reitman saw Don Jakoby’s original […]
MARIANNE MERTEN, Cape Town | Friday A CONSTITUTIONAL Court ruling has opened the way for a teenage Cape Town schoolgirl to claim damages from the Western Cape Department of Education because she was raped by a teacher. Last week the court declared invalid a law that allows aggrieved South African citizens only 90 days to […]
REVIEWS Gavin Foster Triumph Bonneville, R59 995 BMW K1200 RS, R107 600 Remember the days when the valve-caps were the only plastic bits on a motorcycle? When only ducktails had tattoos, and the 115mph (183kph) Triumph Bonneville was king of the bonies? Today things are different. The mechanicals of modern superbikes are all enclosed in […]
BODY LANGUAGE Polly Vernon She gazes defiantly from behind the battered perspex of any number of bus shelters. Statuesque, dewy-thighed, leather-booted. Guns and techno-gadgetry strapped to her bare flesh, glossed lips slightly parted, hair damp with the (not unduly pungent, mind) sweat of her recent exertions. She is Lara Croft or, rather, Angelina Jolie pretending […]
Jane Rosenthal The Picador Book of African Stories edited by Stephen Gray (Picador) Unity in Flight (Botsotso) Tenderfoots (M&G Books) ‘Africa is difficult to see because it is gun-shaped and heart-shaped. It takes heart to see her. It takes some cultural and racial overcoming. Actually it takes being a true richly grounded human being to […]
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 […]
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 […]
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. […]
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 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 […]