The Sunday Independent (South Africa) back issues from March 2007:
Tax on retirement funds is gone: get with the programme and start saving.(Business Report Weekend)
Mar 04, 2007 ... Retirement fund tax is gone. It has not merely been reduced; it has been abolished. At a time when a tiny minority can afford to retire without a plunge in living standards, finance minister Trevor Manuel's ending of a decade of taxation of retirement savings should be ...
Approvals for new houses decline as rates bite.(Business Report Weekend)
Mar 04, 2007 ... BYLINE: MZWANDILE JACKS Johannesburg - South African developers were concerned about higher interest rates, lower house price growth and a rise in purchase prices for vacant land as approvals for new housing fell, it was announced this week. According to Industry ...
Post Office forced to beg for R30m.(Business Report Weekend)
Mar 04, 2007 ... BYLINE: Wiseman Khuzwayo Johannesburg - The slogan of the SA Post Office, "We deliver, whatever it takes", does not bear up to scrutiny when it comes to budgeting and infrastructure delivery. Documents in possession of Business Report show an institution that is ...
US firms count the costs of sending their staff as reservists to war in Iraq.(Business Report Weekend)
Mar 04, 2007 ... BYLINE: Will Edwards Five days notice is all Anthony Jimenez got. His technology services company near Washington lost an engineer in Georgia whose National Guard unit was suddenly deployed to Iraq. The call-up last year turned costly for Jimenez's company, ...
Petrol and diesel prices to rise again.(Business Report Weekend)
Mar 04, 2007 ... The government will increase the price of petrol by 4.2 percent on Wednesday after crude oil gained. The price of petrol would rise by 24c to R5.99 a litre in Gauteng, the department of minerals and energy said on Friday in an e-mail. The price of diesel ...
Sasol's first-half profits may rise 9.4%.(Business Report Weekend)
Mar 04, 2007 ... Sasol, the world's largest coal-to-liquids fuel producer, may say first-half profit rose 9.4 percent, after oil prices climbed and a weaker rand cut costs. Earnings before one-time items will be about R7.88 billion or R12.60 a share in the six months to December, ...
Postbank aims to increase handling of social grants.(Business Report Weekend)
Mar 04, 2007 ... Cape Town - Postbank aimed to increase its handling of social grant payments to more than 30 percent from 5 percent, the acting chief executive of the SA Post Office, Motshoanetse Lefoka, told parliament's communications portfolio committee on Friday. Lefoka was unable to answer ...
Interest rates put brakes on new vehicle sales.(Business Report Weekend)
Mar 04, 2007 ... BYLINE: MZWANDILE JACKS Johannesburg - Vehicle sales growth slowed to an annual 4.9 percent last month, indicating that consumers were beginning to feel the bite of last year's 200 basis points increase in interest rates. This sales growth, which slowed from 6.9 ...
Ovation under curatorship.(Business Report Weekend)
Mar 04, 2007 ... BYLINE: From SAPA New York - Fidentia's collapse had further repercussions in the Cape high court on Friday, when two closely linked companies were also placed under curatorship. The court granted a provisional order placing Ovation Global Investment Services and Ovation Global ...
Contribute now to have lasting BEE credits.(Business Report Weekend)
Mar 04, 2007 ... For background purposes, the Broad-based Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) Act binds the organs of state to take into account BEE contributions before they can issue licences, concessions, or provide any procurement opportunities. The BEE codes of good practice therefore become ...
MTN shares sold for quarter of value.(Business Report Weekend)
Mar 04, 2007 ... MTN Group, Africa's largest cellphone operator, said a company controlled by its directors began selling MTN shares at less than a quarter of the market price, honouring a deal with lenders that financed the purchase of their stake. Newshelf 664, controlled by MTN ...
A cool-headed read of Europe's angst over race.(Dispatches)
Mar 04, 2007 ... I recently heard Job Cohen, the mayor of Amsterdam, speak at his official residence on Herengracht. The mayor opened a writers' conference with welcoming charm, but what struck me more than his words was the rococo splendour of the decor. Behind the plain canal-side frontage, municipal ...
Suite of dreams; A guy with no kids spends a night in Cinderella's Suite. Travis Reed /reports on his experience.(Life)
Mar 04, 2007 ... I am in hundreds of strangers' holiday pictures - the guy in the sputtering truck at the front of the Walt Disney World parade in Florida. I'm sitting next to Daisy Duck and wearing mouse ears embroidered with my name, waving like an idiot and smiling like I just won a toaster. ...
Things to do in America.(Life)
Mar 04, 2007 ... BYLINE: BETH J HARPAZ Perhaps you've heard about the Grand Canyon skywalk, a glass observation deck that will jut out from the edge of the canyon 1 200m over the Colorado River. The skywalk is scheduled to open to the public this month and promises to be one of the most ...
visit an irish castle; Or rent one, if you're feeling wealthy - there's a wide choice, writes Sheila Flynn.(Life)
Mar 04, 2007 ... The image of majestic stone castles rising from rolling green fields is a romantic one, a fantasy held by many travellers who dream of Ireland. But that image is a reality all over the island nation - where castles offer such differing charms and features that visitors can tailor castle ...
Nooit, my bru.(Life)
Mar 04, 2007 ... 'So how's the spiritual journey going?" My physiotherapist's tone was super casual. It was as if he was asking about renovations to a house. And it didn't help that as he asked, his fingers were knuckle-deep in the aching muscles between my shoulder blades. ...
SA set to crack down on child pornography; The recent Austrian investigation involving 77 countries shows a need for international co-operation on child-abuse laws, government says.(News)
Mar 04, 2007 ... BYLINE: Edwin Naidu Harsher penalties and more stringent laws would make South Africans intolerant of child pornography and spread the message that children do not need such filth in their lives, said Malusi Gigaba, the deputy minister of home affairs. Gigaba said ...
Celebrity Mania; The media is full of news about the rich and famous. Mary Corrigall takes a look at the the forces behind society's insatiable appetite for gossip about famous folk.(Life)
Mar 04, 2007 ... The rich and famous have always garnered attention, but the past decade has seen celebrity mania intensify. Politics and catastrophes are often relegated to page two to make way for celebrity gossip. Where once only crazed teen fans knew the life stories of these perfect beings, ...
It's 2007... so where are the /hover-cars and jetpacks?(Life)
Mar 04, 2007 ... 'Tell this crackpot to kindly drop dead" - What the publisher of Wireless World reportedly said after reading a 1945 Arthur C Clarke science paper that predicted the communications satellite. South Africa's very own "braaivleis Nostradamus", Nicolaas van Rensburg, is said to ...
GETTING FRESH; Never mind some tawdry pub of the sort that journalists are meant to haunt, James Siddall's local is Sprigs The Food Shop in Kloof, and he wouldn't have it any other way.(Life)
Mar 04, 2007 ... Writing about or reviewing eateries where not only are you a regular but friends, or at least good acquaintances, with the owners would, you might imagine, result in hagiographic flights of gush. This would be understandable too, as it would not only possibly ensure you ...
SA poet's brutal honesty and originality make this no ordinary debut collection.(Dispatches)
Mar 04, 2007 ... Hintsa's Ghost, Andrew Miller's debut poetry collection, calls to the fore all the sleeping dogs that were left to lie. His reach is broad enough, taboo subjects are brought to the fore and once again we realise why they were ordered them to stay in the closet - they are embarrassingly ...
Amusing tales of life in other pastures will have emigres thinking twice.(Dispatches)
Mar 04, 2007 ... This collection of essays by five South African writers from Two Dogs will bring a smile to every South African patriot's face and a groan and loud curse from patriots of the other five nations mentioned in the title. With the very Australian symbol, a boomerang, on the cover ...
FACT BOX:.(Life)
Mar 04, 2007 ... IRELAND: General tourism information, http://www.discoverireland.com ADAMS & BUTLER: Can book castle stays and tours; www.irishluxury.com CASTLES: Ashford: www.ashford.ie Belleek: www.belleekcastle.com Blarney: www.blarneycastle.ie ...
Scourges are surmountable if we subscribe to constitutional values.(News)
Mar 04, 2007 ... BYLINE: Tim Trengove Jones As history indicates, President Thabo Mbeki is not one to kowtow to popular agitation. For years, pressure leading up to the state of the nation address demanded clear, decisive leadership on HIV/Aids. For years, the president was mostly non-compliant ....
How gangs end up guiding our youth; If South Africa is serious about solving crime, it needs to understand the ancient rituals of dislocated adolescence.(News)
Mar 04, 2007 ... BYLINE: Don Pinnock 'Boys everywhere have a need for rituals marking their passage to manhood. If society does not provide them, they will inevitably invent their own.' - Joseph Campbell The decision of Trevor Manuel, the finance minister, to pay for more policemen ...
Invent the pop video? Not likely; Pioneering film-maker, falconer and father of eight, Peter Whitehead has led a full life. John Preston tracks down one of the counterculture's most intriguing figures to a housing estate in the British Midlands and finds the address is not the only surprise.(Dispatches)
Mar 04, 2007 ... The car park at Kettering station is not the sort of place you expect to meet a mystic. But here is Peter Whitehead with long white hair and dark glasses emerging through the gloom of a January afternoon in a beaten-up, red Vauxhall Astra. There can be no doubt that Whitehead is ...
Gift of the gab is earning million-dollar Bill a peachy life six years after the White House.(Dispatches)
Mar 04, 2007 ... BYLINE: Andrew Buncombe When you are there, in person, you get an idea of what all the fuss and bother is about. When you see how he effortlessly connects with an audience, somehow making it appear he is speaking to each and every one of them individually, you understand why ...
Gore criticised for mansion's carbon footprint.(Dispatches)
Mar 04, 2007 ... BYLINE: Catherine Elsworth Al Gore, whose environmental activism inspired the Oscar-winning documentary An Inconvenient Truth, has been accused of hypocrisy over his own consumption of energy. A research group in Tennessee, where the former United States ...
Peace prize nominee battles to save the Inuit; Campaigner works to put a human face on the effects of global warming, writes Andrew Gumbel.(Dispatches)
Mar 04, 2007 ... If Nobel Peace prizes could refreeze the polar ice caps, then Sheila Watt-Cloutier would be a very happy woman indeed because her people are "defending the right to be cold". As it is, the Canadian activist, who lives in a remote community up above the Arctic circle, is thrilled ...
We still have a window for change.(Dispatches)
Mar 04, 2007 ... BYLINE: Sheila Watt-Cloutier We Inuit have lived in the Arctic for millennia. Our culture and economy reflect the land and all that it gives. We are connected to the land. Our understanding of who we are - our age-old knowledge and wisdom - comes from the land. It is ...
Good acting, poor plot leave more questions than answers.(News)
Mar 04, 2007 ... In a curious way, Notes on a Scandal is just that: notes. It's one of those films in which the performances stand out of and apart from the film: you remember the displays but can't help wondering what the object of the exercise is. What is the film about? Why did I admire acting and ...
Verster at 70 glances back to when he was 30; In retrospect, his work reflects his own sense of isolation and alienation, he tells Carol Brown.(News)
Mar 04, 2007 ... Andrew Verster, one of the country's most prominent artists, turns 70 this year and Marklyn Govender, his friend and an up-and-coming artist, turns 30. The exhibition at the KZNSA questions how age affects an artist's productivity. Instead of exhibiting current work by both ...
War almost impossible for foreign journalists to cover.(Dispatches)
Mar 04, 2007 ... BYLINE: Patrick Cockburn The Iraq conflict is the great crisis of our era, but television has found it impossible to cover it properly. The dangers to correspondent and crew are too great, and the limitations of being embedded with the United States or British armies subvert ...
How to build success on a firm foundation of failure.(News)
Mar 04, 2007 ... BYLINE: Adam Lusher Until now, it has been a secret society, shadowy and on the margins. Which is perhaps understandable. Its leading lights include the man who climbed Everest "and fell off", the major who captured a flock of sheep instead of the IRA, and the explorer who went ...
Short stories inspired by headlines add up to a solid collection.(Dispatches)
Mar 04, 2007 ... Oshun's second annual short story anthology, Twist: Short Stories Inspired by Tabloid Headlines, is an extraordinary mix of 23 stories, ranging from bizarre and excruciatingly funny to insightful and poetically touching. The collection is edited by Ceridwen Morris and Helen Moffett. ...
Complain all you want, the high and mighty are still not listening.(News)
Mar 04, 2007 ... South Africa is a country of much shouting, shooting, shifting blame, shirking and skirting around issues. Most politicians, it would seem, with President Thabo Mbeki's endorsement, appear deaf to the people. Critics are often depicted as whining white whingers. They would have ...
Awards abound and Tolstoy emerges lighter.(Dispatches)
Mar 04, 2007 ... The English Academy Olive Schreiner Prize for Prose 2006 was this week awarded to Russell Brownlee for Garden of the Plagues (Human & Rousseau) and to Jane Taylor for Of Wild Dogs (Double Storey). The runner-up was Consuela Roland's The Good Cemetery Guide. The judges said of ...
Perlman symbolises freedom of expression.(News)
Mar 04, 2007 ... Now that the seemingly unthinkable has happened, and John Perlman has completed his last few days as a presenter on SAfm, I wish to add my voice to those who have expressed their outrage over the circumstances that have obliged him to leave the SABC. As someone who played a ...
Manto's right to privacy violated by speculation.(News)
Mar 04, 2007 ... I am perturbed, both as a private citizen of this country and in my capacity as registrar of the Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA), by the indiscriminate insensitivity and wanton disregard for the right to privacy of Dr Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, the minister of health. ...
Will Bafana be ready for World Cup?(News)
Mar 04, 2007 ... All is not lost for Bafana Bafana's cause in 2010. Euro giants France never scored a goal in the previous World Cup, came home with their tails between their legs, but performed creditably for runners-up medals in 2006. However, one feels that the obscene "humungous" package ...
Letter writer missed the point on Docrats.(News)
Mar 04, 2007 ... Since Saber Ahmed Jazbhay compares me to PW Botha, I feel obliged to respond and entitled to space to do so, but at the same time I apologise to your readers for boring them. Both the time and space utilised on the above's letter and this reply could have been saved if Mr/Ms ...
St Petersburg's Giselle sensitive to its drama.(News)
Mar 04, 2007 ... Dymchik Saykeev, whose version of Giselle this is, does something in the role of Hilarion that sums up the diligent subtlety of the production. Giselle, having discovered that the aristocrat Count Albrecht has been, as they used to say, trifling with her affections, goes mad rather than ...
Limits are anathema, freedom is everything on this canvas.(News)
Mar 04, 2007 ... BYLINE: Dawn Kennedy "Style is everything," says Mustafa Maluka, colour carefully arranged on his person. "I love putting things together in ways that no one else has thought of." The Interview (A Transcript) is Maluka's second exhibition at the Michael Stevenson ...
Award-winning architect Heinrich Wolff 'combines practice, theory and teaching'.(News)
Mar 04, 2007 ... BYLINE: Staff reporter Heinrich Wolff has won the DaimlerChrysler award for South African architecture, it was announced in Pretoria on Thursday. This is DaimlerChrysler's seventh arts award. The previous ones were for achievement in contemporary art, jazz, sculpture, ...
Memories of a fire in Muizenberg; Sixty years ago, the Cape Town hotel in which Dan Jacobson was staying caught alight. He recalls the episode.(Dispatches)
Mar 04, 2007 ... A lmost six decades have passed since I was roused one morning by the strangest wake-up call I have ever heard. I was then on holiday in Muizenberg, near Cape Town. Asleep in the tiny room on the half-landing to which I had been consigned by the management of the Hotel Victoria, I was ...
Title chasing Grace, amateur in name only.(Sports)
Mar 04, 2007 ... BYLINE: Grant Winter Port Elizabeth - Branden Grace today begins the defence of his title in the Sanlam South African Amateur strokeplay championship at Humewood. And judging by the recent form of the 18-year-old from George Golf Club, the other 167 players in the ...
Much less than the sum of its parts; Neither music nor lyrics can redeem this ghastly romantic comedy. Bring back the real Nora Ephron, please.(News)
Mar 04, 2007 ... Nora Ephron, go hang your head in shame! You were responsible for reviving the romantic-comedy genre, which had fallen by the wayside in 1989, when you penned When Harry Met Sally. You compounded that with your own directorial effort, Sleepless in Seattle, and both films were ...
Gore's winner based on a convenient untruth.(News)
Mar 04, 2007 ... With Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth winning an Oscar, it is worth looking a little deeper at global warming. There is consensus on two basic facts: the Earth is warming up (a little), and levels of CO2 are higher than they have been (caused mainly by man's use of fossil fuels) ....
An Afrikaner's long walk to reconciliation; Leon Wessels has been through changes since he rode behind Verwoerd in 1964, writes Kevin Ritchie.(Dispatches)
Mar 04, 2007 ... A young man sits atop a white horse, looking resolutely into the camera. The caption tells us he's part of an honour guard during the erstwhile National Party's 50th anniversary celebrations in De Wildt, a small town in the old western Transvaal, in 1964. The rider is waiting to ...
TT joins Classic fM.(News)
Mar 04, 2007 ... Classic fM is delighted to announce that one of the country's most entertaining broadcasters, Thabiso Tema, or "TT" as he is known, joined the station on February 1 as the host of The Classic Brunch. "TT", formerly from Metro FM and SAfm, is one of the country's most talented ...
Young lions of '76 who strayed from the pride need to be recognised.(News)
Mar 04, 2007 ... BYLINE: Patrick Laurence The Soweto student revolt of 1976 and the wider rebellion of young blacks that it precipitated are seminal events in the struggle for democracy in South Africa. For that reason they are justifiably a major theme in the newly released second volume of The ...
Cliff Richard looks back over a career spanning nearly 49 years.(News)
Mar 04, 2007 ... BYLINE: PETER FELDMAN Sir Cliff Richard's media conference in Johannesburg this week assumed almost surreal proportions. First, the exercise was conducted live, warts and all, on Talk Radio 702, with Jenny Cryws-Williams hosting the proceedings. Not only did Sir ...
Meet the Democratic Alliance's litmus test; Joe Seremane is a former PAC man and Robben Islander who is the party's great black hope, or only black hope, for a liberal agenda.(News)
Mar 04, 2007 ... BYLINE: Maureen Isaacson Look out, here comes the new Leader! Joe Wetshotsile Seremane, the Federal Chairperson of the Democratic Alliance (DA) says he was insulted in parliament this week. And he is used to taunts; outside his party he's been called a sellout, a ...
Elephants get better deal while scientists take stock; Restrictions on riding safaris and the banning of 'green' hunting are some of the proposals for a total management plan for pachyderms.(News)
Mar 04, 2007 ... BYLINE: Eleanor Momberg Stricter control over elephant-back safaris and a ban on the "green" hunting of elephants are among the wide-ranging regulations contained in the government's draft policy document, National Norms and Standards for the Management of Elephants, published ...
Critical public will watch these cullings.(News)
Mar 04, 2007 ... There was a time when elephants got massacred, to the point of bringing Africa's once-mighty herds to the brink of extinction. And, except for a few conservationists, nobody seemed really to care. Now, less than a 100 years later, elephants may once again get shot, but this time ...
'Poor' Stars lack quality - coach.(Sports)
Mar 04, 2007 ... BYLINE: Paul Martin With the Silver Stars' total monthly playing squad salary bill amounting to around R440 000, coach Owen da Gama finds himself short of between three and five key quality players that could turn his squad into Castle Premiership title winning material. ...
It's the Mutombo way, or no way.(Sports)
Mar 04, 2007 ... BYLINE: Paul Martin Aggression, focus, discipline, one match at a time! Orlando Pirates coach Kalambay "Bibey" Mutombo has silenced many of the club's critics with his recipe for soccer success that has seen the Buccaneers put together a run of six wins and two draws ...
The Southern Ocean needs real protection, says WWF.(News)
Mar 04, 2007 ... BYLINE: Eleanor Momberg The Ross Sea near Antarctica should be declared a marine protected area to guard it from unsustainable fishing, marine pollution, climate change and the spread of invasive plants and animals, says the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF). The call ...
DA must choose between chutzpah and melanin.(News)
Mar 04, 2007 ... BYLINE: CHRISTELLE TERREBLANCHE The Democratic Alliance's first leadership battle in two decades is forcing it to reassess its role in an effort to escape becoming a political anachronism. The entrance into the leadership race of the DA's national chairman, Joe ...
Globe-trotting Parreira gains solace from his seascapes.(News)
Mar 04, 2007 ... BYLINE: Karyn Maughan Bafana Bafana coach Carlos Parreira loves painting - but he has only one subject. "The sea, always the sea," he said. "I have a house in Rio by the sea and when I wake up I go to my window. I see the ocean. "It's lovely ... water for ...
Perlman considers options after leaving SABC.(News)
Mar 04, 2007 ... BYLINE: Edwin Naidu Respected radio personality John Perlman is not short of job offers after leaving the SABC on Friday. "I had a five-week break in December so I want to get busy again ... I've had a lot of interesting offers but I need to clear my head first before ...
UN 'must not wash hands of AU peacekeepers'.(News)
Mar 04, 2007 ... BYLINE: Joe Lauria United Nations - Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma, the minister of foreign affairs, will preside over a special session of the United Nations security council later this month aimed at getting the UN to better support African Union peacekeeping missions on the ...
Biennale in row over African exhibition.(News)
Mar 04, 2007 ... BYLINE: Special Correspondent It probably seemed like a good idea at the time, but now the decision by the organisers of the Venice Biennale to showcase Africa in a major exhibition this year could blow up in their faces. The international panel of art experts ...
Biggest losers in Fidentia fiasco are those who can least afford it.(News)
Mar 04, 2007 ... BYLINE: Bruce Cameron In a cruel twist of fate for more than 100 000 widows and orphans, the R93 million paid by Fidentia to take control of the Living Hands umbrella trust administration company was paid with their own money. With an amazing sleight of hand, J Arthur ...
Pimped-out pedallers strut their stuff.(News)
Mar 04, 2007 ... BYLINE: TJ Lemon Leon Yekwa is in the business of radio and television repair. Dusty television carcasses lie stacked together in the dirt of his Soweto backyard, their severed intestines glinting in the searing summer heat. An accessorised dikwiel bike turns into the ...