GOOD FOR THE SOUL
By Hilary Prendini Toffoli
There's one businessman from Jozi who won't go anywhere but the Manenberg Jazz Café when he's in Cape Town. He was sitting next to me at Manenberg's bar the other night during the Jou Ma Se comedy festival. Nik Rabinowitz, ...

LIKE MAGIC
By Duncan McLeod
Science fiction writer and inventor Arthur C Clarke once said that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Sony Ericsson's W880i cellphone includes such technology. If you like a song you're listening to o...

101
By David Williams
What is match-fixing? A billion-dollar industry. At its crudest, it is arranging the result of a sports contest to the advantage of gamblers and bookmakers. This is done by bribing players or officials. But the risk of detection in team...

ALL SYSTEMS GO
By Ian Fife
Rebels and dreamers in their hordes have tried to take on the might and inertia of SA's estate agency giants. Their target has been the commissions that house sellers are charged - up to 7,5% plus Vat. And usually they have failed. But Justin C...

STILL IN SERVICE
By Prakash Naidoo
When I mentioned to Reeva Forman that my mother thought she was SA's version of Avroy Shlain, the international cosmetics house that has mastered the art of direct sales, I thought I was paying her a compliment. Her retort was: "Oh no,...

COMINGS & GOINGS

Mzi Khumalo Steps down as chairman of Mintek, SA's mineral research entity, after five years. Khumalo, a former Robben Island political prisoner and now business heavyweight, is being replaced by Herold Motaung. W...

JOBS ON THE RISE
By Prakash Naidoo
The latest Labour Force Survey, released by Statistics SA this week, shows that the SA economy created 500 000 jobs over the past year. It also revealed that the unemployment rate, using the official definition, fell from 26,7% in Sept...

WHEN THINGS CONSPIRE
By Stafford Thomas
Though the petrol price - R6,67/L for 95 octane in Gauteng - is still fractionally below its peak of R7,04/L in August last year, this month's 11,4% (69c/L hike had the dubious honour of being the highest in more t...

PLAYING THE NUMBERS
By Shannon Sherry
Lotto addicts have been forced to go cold turkey with the suspension of the national lottery after a legal wrangle between inaugural operator Uthingo and Gidani. R30,3m is the largest win yet on the national lottery. It was won on...

TIME TO WRING THE BIRD'S NECK

What can save Rooivalk now? Only one thing: the acquisition by a major international player of the building blocks of the Rooivalk airframe and then turning it into something else and marketing it. We are currently talking to a big Eu...

TOP TECH EXEC QUITS
By Duncan McLeod
A top SABC executive, who was seen as key to the public broadcaster's technical preparations for the 2010 World Cup, has quit. SABC technology MD Sharoda Rapeti resigned last Thursday with immediate effect after nearly 20 years at th...

TURNING POINT FOR PONTE?
By Ian Fife
Ponte City, Jo'burg's biggest block of flats, has been bought by IT businessman Nour Ayyoub and a partner, for an undiosclosed amount. They plan to sell the units individually. Ayyoub says he can't reveal details yet because his ...

WINNERS & LOSERS

LOSER Mandisi Mpahlwa Rather than find a solution to the row over who will run the multibillion-rand fundraising national lottery, the trade & industry minister chose to suspend it. A real cop-out! ...

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

"It suggests that you want to keep some nest egg that you want to ferret out of the country if something goes wrong." - PRESIDENT THABO MBEKI criticising SA companies for keeping "abnormally large" amounts of cash, in an interview ...