The Sunday Independent (South Africa) back issues from February 2008:
Households turn to gas and look into energy efficiency.(Business Report Weekend)
Feb 03, 2008 ... BYLINE: Tom Robbins Cape Town With residential electricity quotas likely to be introduced, consumers will look beyond emergency products such as candles and gas stoves for longer-term solutions such as energy-efficient washing machines. While more efficient household ...
Malls consider huge cost of generators.(Business Report Weekend)
Feb 03, 2008 ... BYLINE: Tom Robbins Cape Town Owners of shopping centres face massive capital outlays as well as safety considerations as they decide whether to invest in generators to keep the country's malls trading. Ina Lopion, the executive director responsible for portfolios at ...
Melrose Arch eyes independent power.(Business Report Weekend)
Feb 03, 2008 ... BYLINE: Tom Robbins Cape Town Mixed-use Johannesburg development Melrose Arch is investigating becoming an independent electricity generator to power its retail, office and residential components, according to the Melrose Arch Development Company. This week WSP ...
Crushing of heritage sites causes uproar.(Business Report Weekend)
Feb 03, 2008 ... BYLINE: Sibongile Khumalo Johannesburg Recent demolitions of historic buildings, some more than a century old, by developers who consider them obstacles to new development, has stirred an uproar. Heritage activists have called for prison sentences for executives of ...
Russian floating nuclear plants may bridge gap.(Business Report Weekend)
Feb 03, 2008 ... Russia is in the middle of developing an approach to power generation that could help South Africa temporarily to bridge the generation gap. The Russians are building the first floating nuclear power plant for terrestrial infrastructure. The country is reportedly willing to ...
Why rogue traders have our admiration.(Business Report Weekend)
Feb 03, 2008 ... After all, losing e4.9 billion (R52 billion) is hardly the kind of achievement that makes your CV glitter. With the exception of finance director for the London Olympics - where a loss of a mere e5 billion would be a reason for pride - it is hard to know what job he can ever apply for. And ...
Erwin's walking handbag appears to hold nothing of practical use.(Business Report Weekend)
Feb 03, 2008 ... The irony is that they want to put up a united front that inspires business and citizens suffering the effects of power cuts. Confidence in the country and the economy is on a downward spiral. Big businesses throughout South Africa are counting the cost of the energy ...
MPC gives debt-burdened consumers reprieve, for now.(Business Report Weekend)
Feb 03, 2008 ... BYLINE: Tonny Mafu Johannesburg The usually hawkish SA Reserve Bank heeded the bearish economic outlook and left interest rates unchanged on Thursday, bringing temporary relief to consumers whose debt had soared to almost 80 percent of their disposable income. The ...
Eskom's power generation gap keeps SA down.(Business Report Weekend)
Feb 03, 2008 ... BYLINE: Justin Brown Johannesburg Eskom's capacity problems are threatening economic growth and jobs could be lost if the utility's woes are not quickly resolved, adding to South Africa's already high levels of unemployment and poverty. Economists said this week that ...
What has broad-based BEE achieved in its first year?(Business Report Weekend)
Feb 03, 2008 ... The greatest impact is the increasing level of awareness of empowerment. Businesses constantly ask their suppliers: "What is your BEE status and what level of recognition can you give me?" Terms such as QSE (qualifying small enterprise) and EME (exempted micro enterprise) have ...
Dollar plumbs depths as recession looms after US sheds jobs.(Business Report Weekend)
Feb 03, 2008 ... BYLINE: Bo Nielsen and Ye Xie New York The dollar approached a record low against the euro on Friday after a US government report showed the economy unexpectedly lost jobs last month, increasing concern that the country is headed for a recession. Investors sold the ...
Quotas on Chinese textiles and clothes prove fruitless.(Business Report Weekend)
Feb 03, 2008 ... BYLINE: Margi Inggs Durban The quotas imposed on Chinese imports from January last year have not made struggling clothing and textile companies more competitive because the two-year period is too short for them to earn a return on investments in new machinery, according to ...
Shaking up ideas may not make them less skewed.(Dispatches)
Feb 03, 2008 ... It is a truism that history is always being revised or rewritten. In some cases, this is a result of new evidence, in others, shifts in paradigms. In some cases, careers are made on original yet controversial insights. Such is the nature of the historical enterprise. But, when a historian ...
Protectors of McEwan's prose may stand down - Atonement dazzles.(News)
Feb 03, 2008 ... When it was announced that Ian |McEwan's dazzling 2002 novel Atonement was going to be adapted for the screen, most of his most ardent admirers had the same reaction: not this time, Hollywood. Back away from the cameras, and nobody gets hurt. The very idea of such masterly prose ...
Sailing away; Humanitarian worker Pamela Ntshanga chooses to live on the sea when she and her husband take extended breaks from their work removing landmines, writes Eva Gilliam.(Life)
Feb 03, 2008 ... After another eight-hour day of sailing, Pamela Ntshanga straps herself to the lifeline on deck to avoid being thrown overboard. She is moving to the front of the 12m-longer yacht to find an anchorage, as the sun is setting and it is time to hunker down for the night. On a ...
Rasta Revisited; Although it started /in the 1950s, Boboshanti is Rasta for the 21st century. Sarah Bentley reports.(Life)
Feb 03, 2008 ... 'Wait here," says Priest Radcliffe, a young Boboshanti Rastafarian and our guide into the camp. "Me call the lead empress to come check you out, make sure you're free." After a brisk hike up a rugged hill we have arrived outside a majestic red, gold and green wood fortress. This ...
In the wilderness of space, the mystery of love still holds true.(Dispatches)
Feb 03, 2008 ... Jeanette Winterson is one of the most stimulating contemporary storytellers. Through her pen, storytelling probes different dimensions, always questioning and redefining itself and its possibilities in the process. With every new title she seems to be on the lookout for new narrative ...
Dutch ban the import of Namibian Cape fur seals.(News)
Feb 03, 2008 ... BYLINE: Eleanor Momberg The Dutch government has banned the import of Cape fur seals and related products from Namibia. The confirmation comes as an investigation is launched into alternate methods of killing seals, following a finding by the European Food Safety ...
Ouch! Potatoes feel the pain.(Life)
Feb 03, 2008 ... For devoted couch potatoes there is never a good time for load shedding. Bona fide TV enthusiasts will watch anything - infomercials, SABC news broadcasts or Second World War re-enactments. It doesn't matter as long as the little box is flickering - that's all that counts. But, ...
Radio gives a good rundown on South African media issues.(Life)
Feb 03, 2008 ... For some years I have lived in relative contentment without a TV. And I must hasten to add that this is not because of some ridiculous intellectual snobbery of the sort that leads a certain class of individual to airily hold forth at any opportunity about how much they hate consumerist ...
Doing Toronto town; In English Canada's largest city you can put on the Ritz, visit world-class museums and edgy bars or enjoy a feast of Hungarian Thai, writes Cindy Loose.(Life)(City overview)
Feb 03, 2008 ... Fashionably dressed locals stroll Mink Row, along Bloor Street, Toronto's upmarket shopping district that's akin to New York's Madison Avenue or Chicago's Miracle Mile. Among those blithely ignoring the winter cold: a stately woman in a Chanel coat and hat, pushing a stylish baby carriage ...
Easy on the ear.(Life)
Feb 03, 2008 ... Fourplay - X Fourplay consists of four highly talented artists: Bob James (keyboards), Nathan East (bass, vocals), Larry Carlton (guitar), and Harvey Mason (drums). Original member Lee Ritenour left the band and Larry Carlton is his replacement. The original three ...
The art of being kEIRA; She's just 22, a talented actress, hugely successful and taking it all in her stride, writes/Ty Burr.(Life)
Feb 03, 2008 ... It is a very good time to be Keira Knightley, and it appears the lady knows it. She wears it well, though. Sitting in a hotel room, Knightley talks about new films and old, characters conquered and roles hoped for, and what is most striking about her is an ease that may or may not be as ...
From suits to/suites, Armani created an era; The Italian designer has developed a world of refinement in which he - and his wealthy clients - can cocoon themselves, writes Sarah Harris.(News)
Feb 03, 2008 ... 'Mr Armani will be here any minute ... I think I can hear him," whispers a member of the immaculately Armani-suited team of PR people, translators and personal assistants waiting at the Italian fashion designer's office in Milan. Like patient courtiers, we have been waiting for ...
White boy as victim is too simple to be believable; One-man stage rendition brings the comedy and pathos of childhood and adolescence under apartheid to life with the drama of physical theatre.(News)(Theater review)
Feb 03, 2008 ... Based on the novel by Troy Blacklaws, Blood Orange hails from that uncomfortable genus of South African writing referred to as confessional white literature, a brand of narrative that documents the effects of apartheid on the white psyche. The stage rendition of the book mostly ...
In Cold War spy game, a coup for the CIA may not have been that at all.(Dispatches)
Feb 03, 2008 ... BYLINE: Craig Whitlock On a rainy day 52 years ago, the cover was blown on one of the biggest espionage plots of the Cold War. Soviet and East German forces announced that they had found a tunnel that the CIA had burrowed into East Berlin as part of a massive wiretapping ...
Geeks bring a new line of attack to US army; Alec Klein looks at a new weapons programme and explains why hackers, worms and Trojan horses could be the Achille's heel of warriors of the future.(Dispatches)
Feb 03, 2008 ... hostlist.6223.soscoe.c16 ... that line of code, like modern-day hieroglyphics, flashes on a flat screen in a classified Boeing plant under the studious gaze of the warriors of the future: software developers, one with spiked hair, another who looks too young to vote. They are ...
Guam braces for 'peaceful' invasion.(Dispatches)
Feb 03, 2008 ... BYLINE: Blaine Harden People on the faraway island of Hagatna, Gaum - a United States territory about 12 500km west of Los Angeles - delight in calling Guam the "tip of the spear" for its role in defending US interests in the Far East. Although the island is ...
Immaculately designed Baker homestead in Constantia Valley oozes grace.(News)
Feb 03, 2008 ... BYLINE: Alan Lipman There I was, in undulating vineyards on a quiet wine estate cosseted between dense urban fabric to the east and the sublime Constantiaberg range. Table Mountain to the north; the precisely stacked vines marshalled in orderly ranks across the southern valley ...
Characters not realised in JM's complex narrative.(Dispatches)
Feb 03, 2008 ... The protagonist of JM Coetzee's latest novel is an ex-South African novelist with the initials JC, living in Australia. He had a father whose initials were ZC. This seems fairly conclusive, but then JC is older than JMC and has won only "a modest reputation" as a novelist. It's ...
Rebellious spirit takes on Islamaphobia and misogyny.(Dispatches)
Feb 03, 2008 ... First, one must accept Maha's racy language, her Durban slang and rough coming-of-age talk. Without the aid of the appended glossary, many of Maha's words and phrases may escape you. But if you press on, the veil will be lifted on the turbulent life of an audacious young South African ...
SA's rural hub of Aids research; A small village in KwaZulu-Natal is the site of the world's most important microbicide studies, but the challenges are many. /Charlene Smith accompanied Derek Hanekom, the deputy minister of science and technology, when he visited it this week.(Dispatches)
Feb 03, 2008 ... Hope resides in unusual places. For all of the world's women, their future risk of contracting HIV could lie in a small village among beautiful green hills and rutted roads in KwaZulu-Natal. It is a place unknown to most South Africans, yet Brad Pitt and Mike Leavitt, the US ...
Don't feelleft out -the jokeis on us all.(News)
Feb 03, 2008 ... In troubled times, the South African fraternity of comedians is there to help lift the gloom cast over the country. In town right now is a Jewish comedian with a somewhat Jewish slant on things. He is Nik Rabinowitz, an unfamiliar name to me, but one who is making giant waves on ...
Death makes some actors live longer. Look at Dean and Monroe.(News)
Feb 03, 2008 ... BYLINE: Linton Weeks Eerie-strange, really, when a famous actor dies unexpectedly. His unreleased work eventually appears, like tomorrow's bloom on a rose cut today. Life after death for Heath Ledger, who died at 28 last week, includes The Dark Knight, a movie ...
From disaster, Man U legend was born; Not even the terrible tragedy 50 years ago could dim the spirit of a club that symbolises human triumph, writes Peter Bills.(Dispatches)
Feb 03, 2008 ... They read out the news in hushed tones, a sense of awe laced with fear and fright in their voices. We listened in silence around the wireless at our home in the countryside, trying to make some sense of such major events in a far-flung country. For on the afternoon of Thursday ...
SA's premier birding site threatened by mining; People come from all over the world to see rare birds at Wakkerstroom, but below the surface of its grasslands lies a type of coal rich in oil...(News)
Feb 03, 2008 ... BYLINE: Leon Marshall Wakkerstroom is tucked away among the rolling hills of the Drakensberg escarpment. The name means "lively stream", which belies the hamlet's nature. But mention it to birders just about anywhere in the world and the response would be like mentioning the ...
Want to live forever? You might end up as a miserable old sod - and think of the wrinkles.(News)
Feb 03, 2008 ... BYLINE: DOMINIC LAWSON One of the virtues of the internet - for a news organisation, at least - is that it tells the provider which stories have aroused the greatest interest among readers. Over the past few days, users of The Independent's online edition have "hit" one story ...
It's anybody's race on eve of Super Tuesday; By now all previous expectations in this battle for the American presidency have been shattered.(News)
Feb 03, 2008 ... BYLINE: Tony Leon Just four months ago, conventional wisdom bestowed five presumptions on the exhaustive and exorbitantly expensive United States presidential election process. First, the immense unpopularity of President George Bush meant the Democratic nominee was ...
I couldn't care if you cut my household electricity by 50 percent.(Dispatches)
Feb 03, 2008 ... BYLINE: Gail Jennings So, sometime soon all households will be rationed to using 10 percent less electricity. Ten percent! Even if that figure were 50 percent there'd still be no reason to panic. Using less electricity is as easy as doing nothing. Our household uses ...
Spicy blend of/personas stirs /the emotions; Rani Moorthy bubbles in her one-woman show featuring a/melange of characters and cultures, writes Arja Salafranca.(News)
Feb 03, 2008 ... There's something on the boil at the Market Theatre in the form of Curry Tales, a one-woman show written and performed by Rani Moorthy. Prior to seeing the show, I knew little about the production except that the actress cooks on stage. Sounded rather light and fluffy to me. ...
World's forests in dire need of protection.(Dispatches)
Feb 03, 2008 ... BYLINE: Johann Hari While we have fixated on our little local worries over the past week, the biggest news story of the year passed unnoticed in the night. The Brazilian government was forced to admit that the destruction of the Amazon rainforest has returned to ecocidal levels ....
Skimming the surface to power the future; The eco-oil race is on and industry giants are looking to pond algae to produce diesel and solar reflectors to make petrol from thin air, writes Simon Usborne.(Dispatches)
Feb 03, 2008 ... The need to find a new generation of fuels has never been greater. Earlier this month, the cost of oil hit $100 (about R746) a barrel for the first time, leading to sky-high prices at petrol pumps all over the world. And consumption shows no signs of slowing as the new economic powerhouses ...
Cassinga battle account reveals biased claptrap; A former South African Defence Force colonel who led forces in the controversial battle speaks out.(News)
Feb 03, 2008 ... I have followed the Sunday Independent letters between Mike McWilliams and Randolph Vigne of Cape Town concerning the Battle of Cassinga. I am totally in agreement with Mike McWilliams since I too was there - in fact, as Mike's commander on that fateful day. Concerning Annemarie ...
If we lighten up, we /can survive this crisis.(News)
Feb 03, 2008 ... When Chris Hani was assassinated, South Africa teetered on the brink of civil war. When the negotiations in the 1990s were threatened by third-force violence and intransigence, we teetered again. When we formed those long queues to vote in 1994, the predicted chaos ...
'Pot plants' at Eskom in desperate need of light.(News)
Feb 03, 2008 ... Hail the Eskom bright sparks and their cabinet minders who have plunged our beloved country into darkness. Not even Osama bin Laden could have sabotaged Africa's leading light on the scale you have ...
SA's nuclear path was /abandoned by others.(News)
Feb 03, 2008 ... I have just read about the hazards of uranium mining, milling and enriching, as well as the routine and accidental radio-active releases during nuclear power generation. Combined with the fact that the German government closed down its modular pebble bed reactor experiment after an ...
Olympic rings are aptly depicted as handcuffs.(News)
Feb 03, 2008 ... China's human rights record is a matter of grave concern for the international community. The advocacy group for press freedom, Reporters Without Borders, is distributing a t-shirt that depicts the five Olympic rings as handcuffs. The t-shirt is quite apt given that China's ...
Dating of the dinosaur extinction inaccurate.(News)
Feb 03, 2008 ... I must warn readers against graphics such as the "depiction of the huge meteorite that struck the Earth 65 million years ago, sending dinosaurs into extinction", in The Sunday Independent, January 27. Hot air rises and cold air sinks. Air approaching the hot equator from both ...
Denialists can't cover up evidence.(News)
Feb 03, 2008 ... Your correspondents (January 20 and 27) ask for polemics to be put aside in relation to what happened at Cassinga, southern Angola, on May 4 1978. But they fail to take their own advice. Certainly the Swapo force there resisted the attack by the South African Defence Force, but ...
Classic fM offers /a Valentine's prize with a difference.(News)
Feb 03, 2008 ... On Valentine's Day, Classic fM will be giving away a special prize that is way more attractive than a room full of roses or a mountain of chocolate. This year, the prize will be The Mozart Limited Edition (wooden) Box Set worth R31 000. The limited edition set has all the ...
President is major casualty of power crisis.(News)
Feb 03, 2008 ... BYLINE: Patrick Laurence Political observers face the challenge of assessing the medium- and long-term implications of South Africa's electricity crisis for the major party political contestants in general and the ruling ANC in particular. The immediate implications ...
Johannesburg's dream of being /world class has not gone belly up.(News)
Feb 03, 2008 ... BYLINE: Philip Harrison The Sunday Independent of January 27 gave a full page to an article entitled "Jo'burg's world-city dreams dashed". In it James Clarke quoted extensively from the opinions of Professor Keith Beavon. The article left the impression of a city in crisis, with ...
Let's hope Super Tuesday keeps it lively.(News)
Feb 03, 2008 ... It is only just February and the early primaries have already thinned the vintage field of United States presidential hopefuls to just two on either side. With the graceful withdrawals this week of Rudy Giuliani and John Edwards, the two initially plausible candidates acknowledged that ...
Sorry girls, but it looks like the dark age is a long way from over.(News)
Feb 03, 2008 ... Among the defining characteristics of our male politicians are their idiotic ideas about sex and rape, and their propensity for apology. George Lekgetho, an ANC MP, told parliament this week that the success of the 2010 World Cup would be enhanced by legalised prostitution. ...
Mbete's actions may signal return to culture of vigilant legislature.(News)
Feb 03, 2008 ... Baron de Montesquieu, the French political thinker, must have been smiling from the grave this week, when national assembly speaker Baleka Mbete summoned the executive to account for the electricity crisis. We certainly observed Montesquieu's doctrine of separation of powers in ...
Time to rethink our approach to animals.(News)
Feb 03, 2008 ... BYLINE: Michael Hanlon Could you be dumber than a chimp? That's not as daft a question as it once was. After all, science has proved that chimpanzees share 99 percent of our DNA. They can learn sign language. They can solve puzzles and even make tools. And now the ...
Mbeki will show off his scorecardHis 2008 state of the nation address pending, the president has a few achievements to deflect heavy criticism of his tenure.(News)
Feb 03, 2008 ... BYLINE: Moshoeshoe Monare In his first state of the nation address when he took over as head of state in the winter of 1999, President Thabo Mbeki announced "that a special and adequately staffed and equipped investigation unit will be established urgently to deal with all ...
Fuel shortages on the cards once more.(News)
Feb 03, 2008 ... BYLINE: Eleanor Momberg South African motorists can expect a recurrence of last year's fuel shortages if liquid fuels are used by large industry as a short-term solution to the electricity crisis. "Fuel supplies are at a critical level. If the solution is to use ...
Cost of power cuts passes on to consumers.(News)
Feb 03, 2008 ... BYLINE: Edwin Naidu The biggest losers in the Eskom powercut saga will be South African consumers. The average citizen will bear the brunt of job losses, spiralling food and fuel prices, and shortages of fruit and vegetable products because of disruptions to farming, ...
Odds against true happiness in this marriage of convenience.(News)
Feb 03, 2008 ... Can the Global Brain be bought? Microsoft would like to think so. On Friday it bid $44,6 billion (about R331 billion) for Yahoo. The thinking behind the proposed merger which, according to Wired blogger Betsy Schiffman, would result in a baby called "Micro-hoo", is two-fold: to ...
Put simply, SA were lucky to have him; There was nothing too big or too small that he wasn't prepared to do.(Sports)
Feb 03, 2008 ... BYLINE: Stuart Hess The name Pollock resonates wherever cricket is played. Graeme Pollock is still spoken of in reverential terms by those who saw him play and Peter Pollock is also held in high esteem as one of South Africa's greatest fast bowlers. So it was natural ...
Peeved Polly.(Sports)
Feb 03, 2008 ... Could the South Africans have engineered a better farewell for Shaun Pollock if they had tried at Kingsmead on Friday night? Probably not, although Polly showed that he had lost none of his fire when took the new ball. When Morne Morkel was caught back on his heels and gave the West Indies ...
Stay off Parreira's back - Masinga.(Sports)
Feb 03, 2008 ... BYLINE: Paul Martin Bafana Bafana goal-scoring legend Philemon Masinga has called on fans to look back at South Africa's return to international soccer in 1992, and the build-up to becoming African Nations Cup champions in 1996, before criticising national coach Carlos Alberto ...
Top-gun Ivan for SA Open.(Sports)
Feb 03, 2008 ... BYLINE: Nazli Thomas The SAA Tennis Open received a major boost this week when organisers announced that Croatian former world No 3, Ivan Ljubicic, had accepted a wildcard invitation to play in this month's tournament. Ljubicic comes in as the highest-ranked player - ...
Hunt picks his ideal Bafana line-up.(Sports)
Feb 03, 2008 ... BYLINE: Paul Martin Bafana Bafana's limitations shown at the African Nations Cup can be put down to the country's football ranks been filled with PSL level players who are just that! Not being good enough to play at the next level, could force Bafana Bafana coach ...