WORLD BANK UPS THE ANTE
By Duncan McLeod
The World Bank Group, one of the principal financiers of the East Africa Submarine System (Eassy), a US$280m submarine telecommunications cable along Africa's east coast, will fund its construction whether the SA government grants land...
DESERT CRUCIBLE
By Carel Nolte
To answer the question: "What is Burning Man?" one has to know one's audience. For dull colleagues : "An art festival in the Nevada desert culminating in the burning of a 24 m statue." For those people with more imagination : "A microc...
MAKE IT A DATE
By Duncan McLeod
Web giant Google is fast building an online rival to Microsoft's Office suite. Google Docs & Spreadsheets already offers a rudimentary alternative to Word and Excel. And Gmail and Google Calendar provide a compelling, Web-b...
PORRITT'S PLEA
By Rob Rose
Nearly five years have elapsed since the arrest of Tigon CEO Gary Porritt - a period pockmarked by about 15 postponements of the criminal case - and it remains anyone's guess when the trial will begin. Porritt and fellow director ...
WINNERS & LOSERS
LOSER Rudi Koertzen SA's premier cricket umpire is missing from some terrific Twenty20 action. He and others are paying the price for misinterpreting the bad-light rules in the farcical 2007 World Cup final in Barbados...
CREDIT CARDS IN NUMBERS
By Heather Formby
6m The approximate number of credit cards in circulation in SA. 1,3-1,5 The average number of credit cards it is estimated each credit card holder holds. R53bn The amount of debt South Africans had on their credit ...
BROKER IS THE WORD
By Rob Rose
Beleaguered broking firm Glenrand MIB has had a rough year, and things aren't looking up. Last week, the pension fund of drug company Novartis took Glenrand Employee Benefits to the high court for failing to do its job. For execu...
SMOOTH SQUEEZE
By Jacqui Wilmot
Shoppers looking for healthy refreshment can pause for a wheat-grass shooter or swig of açai juice, made from an Amazon berry, at newly opened Boost Juice stores. The concept of funky health-on-the-go came to the MD of Boost Juice, Lyle Peters...
WHISPERS AROUND TOWN
One of the worst-kept secrets in the fund management industry is that Old Mutual is in talks to buy Futuregrowth, an asset manager controlled by empowerment group Wiphold. Wiphold is also OM's main BEE partner, so there is an obvious con...
NEW EQUITY ACTIVIST
By Prakash Naidoo
Ten years ago, while on a training programme in Texas, Dirk Hermann struck up an Internet discussion that was to take his life on an unexpected course. The conversation was with Flip Buys, the general secretary of trade union Sol...
COMINGS & GOINGS
Lt-Gen Themba Matanzima In a break with MK dominance of the military, the former Transkei defence boss becomes the SANDF's chief of joint operations, the next-to-top job. He was head of human resources.
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By Prakash Naidoo
What is the US troop surge? The troop surge is a term commonly used to describe US president George W Bush's plan to increase the number of American troops deployed in Iraq, especially in Baghdad and Al Anbar province. Democrats cal...
BANKING TO THE RIGHT
By Rob Rose
For a man who fled SA with a bucketload of taxpayer cash tucked under his arm, Coleman Andrews is surprisingly hard to track down. Eventually, the FM found the former SA Airways boss running the Wyoming-based Rocky Mountain...
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
"Whatever their publicised angst over Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction', American and British authorities were also concerned about violence in the area that harbours a resource indispensable for the functioning of the world econo...
