The Sunday Independent (South Africa) back issues from June 2009:
Mineworkers' unions united in rejecting pay offer.(Business Report Weekend)
Jun 07, 2009 ... BYLINE: Wiseman Khuzwayo A winter of discontent is looming as unions threaten strike action in various sectors of the economy. The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) has threatened strike action in the gold mining sector after the breakdown of pay negotiations with ...
Renewable energy funding down 70% in Asia.(Business Report Weekend)
Jun 07, 2009 ... BYLINE: Dinakar Sethuraman Funding for renewable energy projects plunged 70 percent in the first quarter in Asia as the global recession curbed credit and cut oil prices, reducing the need for alternative power supplies. Investments in wind farms, solar installations ...
Now Chinese are Humming, we needn't fear hegemony.(Business Report Weekend)
Jun 07, 2009 ... Wow. So you like the Hummer? Step right over here. I've got some other beauties you might like - Saab, Saturn, Pontiac. Better yet, can we interest you in some insurance? Are you familiar with the letters AIG? For the cost of a policy, you can now buy the whole company. ...
Saudi Arabia's impetus to change grows as it dreams of new riches beyond oil.(Business Report Weekend)
Jun 07, 2009 ... BYLINE: William Green Deep in the Arabian desert, hundreds of guests celebrate the birth of a city. The Saudi government has flown them in to the northern city of Hail, then bused them under police escort to a giant marquee in the sand with a red carpet out front. ...
Free money beckons at bank of the living dead.(Business Report Weekend)
Jun 07, 2009 ... Then I sat down for breakfast last Sunday with the New York Times business section and saw the interest rates paid by this Chicago-based lender, which has warned investors it's on the brink of collapse. There it was in small type on the markets-data page. Corus was offering ...
Reserve flows raise eyebrows.(Business Report Weekend)
Jun 07, 2009 ... BYLINE: Wiseman Khuzwayo Questions are being asked about the foreign reserves that flowed to the SA Reserve Bank last month. Analysts at Rand Merchant Bank (RMB) are wondering if they were given to Eskom or perhaps kept offshore. John Cairns and Nema ...
Unions of petroleum industry draw battle lines against employers.(Business Report Weekend)
Jun 07, 2009 ... Trade unions in the petroleum sector of the National Bargaining Council for the Chemical Industry have declared a dispute after the failure of negotiations with employers after two rounds, said trade union Solidarity. The unions have rejected a 6 percent wage increase. They want ...
State to set up energy database in two years.(Business Report Weekend)
Jun 07, 2009 ... BYLINE: Justin Brown Magubane said government officials had visited the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) two years ago and gained insight into what was needed to collect energy information. No estimate had been made about how much the new state energy agency would cost ...
Metro municipalities owed billions.(Business Report Weekend)
Jun 07, 2009 ... Metropolitan municipalities were owed a total of R30.3 billion as at March 31 this year, the National Treasury said on Friday. This was according to its third-quarter local government budget statement, which covers revenues and expenditure for the first nine months of the 2008/09 financial ...
Technology a boon to long tail of empowerment.(Business Report Weekend)
Jun 07, 2009 ... The crux of the long-tail concept is that it functions within the framework of the economics of abundance rather than the classical model of economics - scarcity. The impact of the internet has revolutionised the way we do business by democratising access to different opportunities ...
Independent power producer sector stutters.(Business Report Weekend)
Jun 07, 2009 ... The independent power producer (IPP) sector is failing to take off in South Africa because four IPP tenders issued by the Department of Energy and Eskom are in limbo. Eskom issued three IPP tenders last year but suspended them last month. The tenders were a base load tender for ...
Death row broughtto life magnificently; There is genuine gallows humour in a new play about an MK veteran's struggle, but in the end it's a tale of hope... and of justice.(Life)(Theater review)
Jun 07, 2009 ... MANTOLO - The Tenth Step is and can only be a bleak tale, involving as it does the apartheid-era gallows, when sometimes innocent souls were condemned to death on the flimsiest evidence. The play narrates the life and times of political activist Sibusiso Masuku aka Mantolo, ...
The exclusive society where members worship little demigods.(Life)
Jun 07, 2009 ... I have recently lost two friends to what must be the world's largest and most pervasive cult. The baby cult. It seems that when folk procreate, they are immediately ushered into this exclusive society that boasts a culture all of its own. It's not just the masses of ...
New reality shows remove whatever gloss magazines used to have.(Life)
Jun 07, 2009 ... As a teenager trapped in a dull Johannesburg suburb, magazines were my life-blood. It was from these fleeting glossies that I learnt how to manage unwanted hair, unwanted boyfriends and unwanted facial protrusions (pimples). Like a diligent student preparing for a big exam, I ...
Passions that burn hot and cold; A warm Basinger, an icy Theron, and a luminous performance from a teenager on the cusp of stardom.(Life)
Jun 07, 2009 ... Guillermo Arriaga, who writes and directs this feature film, is better known as a screenwriter - he penned the award-winning Babel - and as a writer of short fiction. The unusual and highly inventive Babel played with time and place in a way that is repeated in The Burning ...
Roller coaster of emotions will remain long after show.(Life)
Jun 07, 2009 ... As his first one-man show, For Generations is a tour de force for Kurt Egelhof. Not only is he alone on stage, but he has chosen his own family history as the subject matter, not easy when you come from a mixed family background. This production marks the return to the stage for ...
Memories wave hello in visit to kingdom by the sea; Umhlanga Rocks has become a hub of business and shopping, but it's still a good place to visit if you enjoy long walks on the beach, writes Mary Corrigall.(Life)
Jun 07, 2009 ... WE KNEW we were close because we could see a thick band of deep azure on the horizon where it meets the paler blue of the sky. I had been consumed with thoughts of this patch of the Indian Ocean long before we even left Joburg. In the nights leading up to our departure I had ...
Harrowing voices of Africa's children; Curious dialogue mix and matches, but wonderfully strong writing.(Dispatches)
Jun 07, 2009 ... Here is a debut collection of short stories and novellas, some of which had made quite an impact before the book's appearance. Two were published in the prestigious New Yorker magazine and one of these was shortlisted for the Caine Prize. Uwem Akpan is a Jesuit priest based in ...
Is this the man who snatched Maddie? This paedophile's likeness to the sketch of a Maddie suspect is uncanny - and he admits being just an hour away on the day that she disappeared. He protests his innocence, but he has a horrifying past. David Jones reports.(Dispatches)
Jun 07, 2009 ... ADDRESSED to an internet agency which peddles stories to low-brow media outlets, the e-mail seemed absurdly far-fetched. During a road-trip through Pakistan a decade ago, the woman informant wrote, she and her husband had stumbled upon the secret lair of Osama bin Laden. When ...
The most unimaginable horror; Antony Beevor reveals what allied soldiers faced as they fought to free France from Hitler in 1944.(Dispatches)
Jun 07, 2009 ... WITH biting irony, Soviet propagandists claimed in 1944 that the British and Americans in Normandy were facing only the dregs of the Wehrmacht. "We know where young and strong Germans are now," wrote Ilya Ehrenburg in Pravda. "We have accommodated them in the earth, in sand, in clay." ...
Acerbic Amis turns charmer for tale of sexual revolution.(Dispatches)
Jun 07, 2009 ... BYLINE: Christina Patterson IN THE OLD days, it was young men who were sent to interview Martin Amis: young men who would bask in the golden light of his glory, hoping perhaps that some of that precious, blessed stardust (pure testosterone, maybe, frozen into tiny, glittering ...
Bumping into old ghosts with life's most difficult conversations.(Dispatches)
Jun 07, 2009 ... BYLINE: ANITA SETHI It was such a cloudy day when Caryl Phillips rode the London Eye that he could barely see his own hand. Yet the journey clarified his vision of In the Falling Snow (Harvill Secker), his new novel. A father, Keith, tries to talk to his 17-year-old ...
Karoo child's luck has finally changed; Her early life of hardship - trekking from place to place - is over now that a benefactor has arranged an education, a warm bed and three meals a day, writes Winnie Graham.(Dispatches)
Jun 07, 2009 ... She is a child of the karretjie mense - the Karoo "gypsies" who roam the arid regions of South Africa's vast hinterland. Instead of going to school, this girl of the veld spent most of her early years trekking round the Karoo as her father moved from one place to another looking for work ...
'Leave it forthe ancestors'; The long road she travelled to becoming a white sangoma began for Claire Vangethongo Shields when she was a child with visions and feelings she couldn't explain, writes Lexi Finchham.(Life)
Jun 07, 2009 ... 'Having an entire gathering of parents and children stop in their tracks simultaneously to gawk at me as I head towards the stands is quite intimidating. "I have to say that balancing being a sangoma, a wife and a mother is not always the easiest thing. Nonetheless, I know that ...
Saxophonist Gonsalves's 27 choruses will blow you away.(Life)
Jun 07, 2009 ... This is the second week of our huge Sony giveaway. Today we look at two Duke Ellington albums and one from Charles Mingus. Ellington at Newport is a two-CD album recorded on July 7, 1956. There are 40 tracks, the most memorable the extended solo by Paul Gonsalves. ...
For the record.(Life)(Correction notice)
Jun 07, 2009 ... In a Sunday Life article, "The Elusive Dream" (published on May 24), it was incorrectly stated that "Susan Glanville-Zini and Zane Ibrahim were relieved of their duties as CEO and director" ...
'I consider myself very lucky because in my career every project is different'.(Life)
Jun 07, 2009 ... J I Cuenca chats to Michael Wilkinson, costume designer on Terminator Salvation Q. Were you a fan of the Terminator franchise before getting involved in this movie? A. I believe it would be hard to find anyone in the world who isn't. There is something about it that ...
Short and tweet: the new universal wisdom; Are the 140-word micro-blogs that seem to be taking over the world twittish, good for a laugh, Twitterature - or even art, asks Monica Hesse.(Life)
Jun 07, 2009 ... The whole world is on Twitter. Yawn. Tweets, people will tell you, rot our brains. They ruin our attention spans, inflate our egos. Maureen Dowd would rather be eaten alive by ants than be Twittering, or so she said in a recent column. So let's keep this thesis statement short, ...
Dynamic forms of dance at National Arts Festival.(Life)
Jun 07, 2009 ... BYLINE: Staff Reporter The Fringe dance programme at the National Arts Festival is a showcase of the dynamic spectrum of dance forms - pantsula, isibhujwa, kwasakwasa, hip hop, ballet, gumboot dancing, tap, jazz and contemporary. In many instances, the productions ...
'My ancestors are behind me all the way'.(Life)
Jun 07, 2009 ... "It was initially a very difficult thing for me to do. However the ceremony proved to be very moving and beautiful." With a sparkle of humour, Vangethongo tells me we are sitting on those very same goatskins. She went on to practice as a sangoma for five "happy" ...
Cuss-free, spotty teen toilet humour; Having pledged not to curse in his new show, John Vlismas has found other ways to be crude and lewd.(Life)
Jun 07, 2009 ... Talented and outrageously funny though John Vlismas may be, one starts to wonder whether his approach to comedy is becoming stale. Burp an' fart juvenile humour is okay in small doses, but for an entire hour it becomes onerous. In fact, so prevalent is the below-the-belt ...
Facing the most unimaginable horror to rid France of Hitler's stormtroopers.(Dispatches)
Jun 07, 2009 ... With every bone in his body broken, the corpse was thrown into a shell-hole. The captain declared that this was an example of "Kameradenerziehung", an "education in comradeship". But it was not just the brute fanaticism of the Germans that the Allies had to contend with ....
The North Korean son rises; Kim Jong Il has named his successor, and is keeping it in the family, writes Blaine Harden.(Dispatches)
Jun 07, 2009 ... NORTH Korea's ailing leader has chosen his youngest son - who is just 26, attended a Swiss boarding school and reportedly admires basketball great Michael Jordan - as heir to the family dynasty that rules the secretive state, South Korea's intelligence service told lawmakers in Seoul. ...
Honour code provides Pakistani refugees with relief but is a burden for hosts.(Dispatches)
Jun 07, 2009 ... BYLINE: Griff Witte WHEN Khalil ul-Rahman's houseguests arrived in the Pakistani village of Madhey Baba, they brought with them the clothes on their backs, two cows and little else. That was a month ago. Since then, Rahman, a 43-year-old donkey-cart driver, has been ...
SA could gain by tapping into Rabat's revolution.(News)
Jun 07, 2009 ... BYLINE: Jack Kalpakian and Lyal White Five years ago, when South Africa won the bid to host the Fifa World Cup, its closest rival was Morocco. With a strong football following and its proximity to Europe, the north African kingdom would have been an ideal location for travelling ...
I'm innocent, insists the world's most wanted man.(News)
Jun 07, 2009 ... BYLINE: Katherine Butler A permanent and enigmatic smile plays on the lips of Omar al-Bashir. At least, it does in the portraits of him which bear down on the streets of Khartoum. The billboards carry rousing slogans: "The man of our epoch", "Al Bashir, symbol of national pride ...
From abject poverty to a shining town; In Kenya a little bit of money and a can-do attitude go a long way. An innovative project in Kaputei has transformed the lives of the country's poor.(News)
Jun 07, 2009 ... BYLINE: Daniel Howden Clarice Adhiambo was looking for the usual things when she moved. Safe streets, more space, a guest room, maybe even a view of something green. More than anything she wanted a place to call her own. Her wish-list would be familiar to first-time buyers ...
Wanted: valiant readers and writers to vanquish VAT on books.(Dispatches)
Jun 07, 2009 ... BYLINE: Maureen Isaacson As the heroes of the book trade crawl out from the woodwork at this month's book fests to display their wares, amid announcements of prizes and launches, the scourge of book buyers remains with us. That is why Terry Bell, the tireless ...
The Fly.(News)
Jun 07, 2009 ... Little Fly, Thy summer's play My thoughtless hand Has brush'd away. Am not I A fly like thee? Or art not thou A man like me? For I dance, And Drink, and sing, Till some blind ...
Inefficiency and incompetence may hamper Zuma's ideals; President will face several challenges to achieve his ambitious goals, including confronting his loyalists.(News)
Jun 07, 2009 ... BYLINE: MOSHOESHOE MONARE Most of the promises and targets set by President Jacob Zuma in his State of the Nation address are not necessarily new. But he needs more than tough words to achieve them. The trouble is he expects to deliver through the same public service ...
Words that could heal the wounds of centuries.(News)
Jun 07, 2009 ... BYLINE: Robert Fisk PREACHER, historian, economist, moralist, schoolteacher, critic, warrior, imam, emperor. Sometimes you even forgot Barack Obama was the president of the United States of America. Will his lecture to a carefully chosen audience at Cairo University "re-imagine ...
The man with the president's ear and the African agenda Ebrahim Ebrahim believes it's time for South Africa to take a strong stand on human rights.(News)
Jun 07, 2009 ... BYLINE: Maureen Isaacson Let's start on a lighter note, said Ebrahim Ebrahim - the first of two deputy ministers in the International Relations and Co-operation Ministry. Ebrahim said he was happy with the name change. The old name - the Ministry of Foreign Affairs - ...
Vundla calls for commission of inquiry into SABC.(News)
Jun 07, 2009 ... BYLINE: Fiona Forde Peter Vundla has broken his silence on why he resigned from the SABC board in March and has called for a commission of inquiry to restructure the ailing public broadcaster. Within hours of Kanyi Mkonza resigning as chairwoman of the board this ...
Minister's radical plan aims to revive stagnant agriculture.(News)
Jun 07, 2009 ... BYLINE: Christelle Terreblanche Almost effervescent in her enthusiasm, the new Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries is four weeks into the job and seemingly can't wait to conquer the unruly beast of land reform and remaking South Africa into an agricultural Garden of ...
Let's create an Aids-free generation.(News)
Jun 07, 2009 ... IN MY home country of Ethiopia, especially among mothers and children, HIV is a crisis. Ethiopia is one of nine East and Southern African countries that accounted for half of new HIV infections last year. Across Africa, HIV is a virus that leaves fresh generations of children ...
Is it time for Buthelezi to step out of the ring? After surviving five decades in politics, the veteran IFP leader is coy about his possible retirement.(News)
Jun 07, 2009 ... BYLINE: ANGELA QUINTAL HE WAS described as "the last heavyweight of the Class of 94", whose party's performance in the April elections would determine whether "he had gone one round too many". It was February, and former DA leader Tony Leon was referring to IFP ...
Maybe Kimber can sort out taxi drivers who aren't big on freedom of movement.(News)
Jun 07, 2009 ... GOOD thing I stayed up in the Hacks' Hideout, aka the Press Gallery, for the State of the Nation address to Parliament. No ways could I have competed with Patricia de Lille in her fancy ringmaster suit, let alone with First Lady 3.0, First Lady 3.1, or First Lady 3.2. Also, it ...
Carter's money is on the Boks; All Black superstar believes buoyant mood in SA rugby and 'monsters' like Pierre Spies give them the edge.(Sports)
Jun 07, 2009 ... BYLINE: Peter Bills The world's No 1 rugby player has grim words of warning for the world's most romantic, popular rugby team. New Zealand All Black Dan Carter says that unless Ian McGeechan's 2009 Lions can come together quickly on their South African tour, they ...
'These days they have medics ... we had Elastoplast'.(Sports)
Jun 07, 2009 ... BYLINE: Brian Viner talks to Willie-John McBride CLIFF Morgan once described him as "one of the most unbelievable men you'll ever meet in your life" and I met him in the dining room of a hotel in South Wales prosaically tucking into eggs, bacon, sausage and tomato. ...
Vettel steals pole under Button's nose; Joy for young Red Bull driver but Hamilton in despair after failing to make first cut yet again.(Sports)
Jun 07, 2009 ... BYLINE: Sapa-AFP German driver Sebastian Vettel of Red Bull outpaced his rivals in the closing seconds of a dramatic qualifying session yesterday to claim pole position for the Turkish Grand Prix. The 21-year-old German delivered his second pole of the season and the ...
Buthelezi saddened by chasm between ANC, IFP.(News)
Jun 07, 2009 ... BYLINE: Angela Quintal IFP LEADER Mangosuthu Buthelezi believes Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe is committed to reconciliation between the ANC and IFP, but he is not sure President Jacob Zuma is on the same wavelength. After Zuma's election in the National Assembly ...
There has to be an alternative to expropriation, says land minister.(News)
Jun 07, 2009 ... BYLINE: Christelle Terreblanche The government wants to go back to the drawing board on some of the tricky and emotive problems about land. Minister of Rural Development and Land Reform Gugile Nkwinti has said he won't immediately try to revive the controversial ...
Get rid of tainted SABC board.(News)
Jun 07, 2009 ... PRESIDENT Jacob Zuma is already on record as saying the government intends to root out underperformers and hold leaders accountable for their actions. Zuma must be careful that he does not end up a sweetheart president; he must ensure that his ministers crack the whip. Nowhere ...
Zuma sticks with his tried and tested bodyguards.(News)
Jun 07, 2009 ... BYLINE: SIBUSISO NGALWA PResident Jacob Zuma has insisted on retaining the bodyguards who have been with him through thick and thin. Zuma's intervention comes after a stand-off between the presidential bodyguards and the bosses of the police's VIP Protection Unit. ...
'We will kill in war over buses'; National Taxi Alliance threatens to turn violent over new BRT.(News)
Jun 07, 2009 ... BYLINE: Fiona Forde RADICAL elements of the taxi industry have threatened to kill if their demands to own and run the new Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system are not met. Speaking ahead of Thursday's meeting between Transport Minister S'bu Ndebele and the ...
ANC caucus to lose R18 million, putting 170 jobs at risk.(News)
Jun 07, 2009 ... BYLINE: Caiphus Kgosana, Carien du Plessis, Siyabonga Mkhwanazi and Sibusiso Ngalwa THE ANC's parliamentary allocation will be slashed by R18 million, threatening the jobs of 170 staff members. Because the party lost 33 seats in the National Assembly and more in ...
Firearm owners gunning for police.(News)
Jun 07, 2009 ... BYLINE: eLEanor Momberg The Ministry of Police is to review implementation of the 2004 Firearms Control Act after being inundated with complaints from gun owners about the backlog of applications, and the lack of compensation for firearms handed in. Gun owner ...
Doctors may strike during World Cup; As problems with pay persist, thousands apply for certificates to go work overseas.(News)
Jun 07, 2009 ... BYLINE: Edwin Naidu The government's reluctance to resolve the crisis over doctors' pay and working conditions could have severe repercussions for the 2010 Fifa World Cup. Disgruntled doctors in public hospitals, some of whom earn less than bus drivers in Joburg, ...
Manuel puts Boesak's book on ice.(News)
Jun 07, 2009 ... BYLINE: GAYE DAVIS FORMER finance minister Trevor Manuel has issued a lawyer's letter to Dr Allan Boesak over claims he makes in a new book, forcing its launch to be stalled. Entitled Running with Horses: Reflections of an Accidental Politician, the book is a memoir ...
Ministerial briefings cancelled; Opposition parties express concern as announcement of detailed government plans is postponed at eleventh hour.(News)
Jun 07, 2009 ... BYLINE: Xolani Mbanjwa A BEHIND-the-scenes row over economic policy may have contributed to the sudden cancellation of plans for ministers to unveil details of their departments' programmes. Flights and catering had already been organised for the briefings, ...
Mystery deepens over arms dealer's murder.(News)
Jun 07, 2009 ... BYLINE: Ivor Powell Arms dealer and manufacturer Ivan Monsieur should maybe have known better. Six months before his mysterious death on Tuesday in an apparent hit carried out by men in police uniform, Monsieur's home had been invaded by three similarly uniformed ...
SABC board may have broken law; Only president allowed to appoint new chairman, Broadcast Act says.(News)
Jun 07, 2009 ... BYLINE: Edwin Naidu Ashwin Trikamjee may have been unlawfully appointed as acting chairman of the SABC board. Trikamjee, a Durban lawyer, was summoned to Pretoria for a meeting with Communications Minister Siphiwe Nyanda yesterday, and it is understood that he was ...
Adriaan Vlok in line for possible pardon.(News)
Jun 07, 2009 ... BYLINE: Eleanor Momberg Former law and order minister Adriaan Vlok is among 121 people recommended for a presidential pardon, according to a civil society coalition that had legally challenged the granting of special pardons without the consultation of victims. ...
Sundowns axe five players.(Sports)
Jun 07, 2009 ... Pretoria - Mamelodi Sundowns yesterday confirmed that five players, including Sibusiso Zuma, would leave the club immediately. "Based on the recommendations of Trott Moloto and Ted Dumitru, (we have) decided that Sibusiso Zuma, Collins Mbesuma, Jorge Acuna, Lungisani Ndlela and Shere ...
In-form Aussies thump Baabaas.(Sports)
Jun 07, 2009 ... Sydney - Australia opened their international season in ominous fashion with a record 55-7 thumping of the Barbarians at the Sydney Football Stadium yesterday. The Wallabies were never seriously challenged by a strong Barbarians side, which beat England last week, running in ...