Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan says SA needs flexibility, innovation and leadership. .

 To compete in the global economy, flexibility, innovation and leadership by both the government and the private sector were required, Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan said yesterday.

 Referring to the National Development Plan, driven by Minister for Planning in the Presidency Trevor Manuel, who is Gordhan’s predecessor, and the New Growth Path, driven by Economic Development Minister Ebrahim Patel, Gordhan acknowledged the inputs of these two programmes in what he dubbed the need to build a more “adaptable” economy.

In his 2012/13 Budget speech, Gordhan noted that the New Growth Path recognised that special employment initiatives had to be a priority in “our present national circumstances”, while in the longer term “growth in agriculture and manufacturing and investment in a knowledge-based economy must be prioritised”.

The draft National Development Plan identified several key objectives, including lowering costs for both households and business, increasing public infrastructure spending, growing South Africa’s agricultural and manufacturing sectors, raising mining output, improving the functioning of the labour market “particularly to help young people access work”, and raising competitiveness and exports.

But Gordhan emphasised that South Africa’s development strategy “requires a capable state and active citizens”. The country needed parents to work with the state to deliver quality education, community leaders that would help protect neighbourhoods, business leaders and trade unions to grow the economy, and investors who created jobs.

He made the point in isiZulu: “Uzoyithola kanjani uhleli ekhoneni”, which means: “How far will you get if you are sitting in your corner?”

Gordhan underpinned Patel’s jobs drive as the number one priority in the New Growth Path. Patel has argued that public investment could create 250 000 jobs a year in energy, transport, communications and water infrastructure and in housing through to 2015.

While Patel focused more on the state’s role in fast-tracking job creation, Gordhan said that the private sector should play a substantial role in several sectors. “Access to telecommunications services is financed by private operators and our airline industry has several private sector players,” he said.

“The first round of over 1 200 megawatts of renewable energy projects was recently successfully tendered to independent power producers.”

Private sector capacity could also be mobilised through construction and operating concessions, for example in the management of industrial development zones, freight logistics and ports operations, Gordhan said.

He appeared to emphasise Manuel’s contribution to the national debate on how to spur growth and development, referring to the National Planning Commission vision as having “built” on the New Growth Path adopted in 2010.

His director-general. Lungisa Fuzile, said in the Budget Review that the commission had identified the main challenges facing the economy as unemployment, income inequality, poor quality education, poorly located and insufficient infrastructure, the resource intensity of exports and skewed spatial patterns.

Fuzile said that the proposed interventions were aimed at expanding economic opportunity for all through investment in infrastructure, diversifying exports, strengthening links to faster-growing economies, enacting reforms to lower the cost of doing business, reducing constraints to growth in various sectors, and moving to more efficient and climate friendly production systems.

“Improving infrastructure and network services that support industries such as mining and agriculture as well as new dynamic industries will be the focus of a more labour-absorbing growth path.

“Regulatory reforms, improved competitiveness and an enabling investment climate will boost employment and growth prospects.”

With the Super Rugby season being longer this year, teams will have to manage their players more carefully.

Sydney – Super Rugby teams will have to change the way they manage their squads to cope with the longest ever season in the southern hemsiphere's annual provincial championship, according to Sanzar chief Greg Peters.

There were rumblings of an injury crisis in New Zealand last year after a new format was introduced with a five-team conference in each of the three Sanzar countries and a commensurate increase in hard-fought local derbies.

Although there will be no more matches this year than last, the season stretches from its launch on Friday to the final on August 4 with a three-week international break in June.

That makes for an extremely arduous season for the top players, who are also likely to play Test rugby, and increases the likelihood teams will have to use all the playing resources available to them.

“I think it's going to require a different management of those squads with the international players going off for three weeks and coming back, possibly with injuries, and the young players continuing to train,” Peters told Reuters in an interview.

“I think it's going to be very much suck and see how the coaches and teams manage that.

“There is, under the new format, less travel and more domestic games and perhaps that three-week window will give our players who aren't involved in internationals a chance to refresh before the final three weeks of round robin and the finals.”

Peters, who was appointed to run Sanzar on the eve of the last Super Rugby season, said results of last year's changes was positive with crowds at local derbies up by 4,000 on the matches they replaced.

“I think year one of the new format was largely a big success,” he said.

“That's what the fans have wanted to see is the local derbies, mate against mate ... they're loving it and to have that home and away every year is a great benefit.

“It was really positive in the Australian market, solid in South Africa and some issues in New Zealand with the crowds, a bit of World Cup fatigue and people's money gone and earthquakes and so on.”

Last year's deadly Christchurch earthquake left the seven-times champions Canterbury Crusaders homeless and added to problems caused by some disappointing crowds in New Zealand.

Peters is hoping, however, for a World Cup dividend this year in his native land.

“The All Blacks winning the World Cup is very important for New Zealand, not only in a rugby but also in a country context,” he said.

“Hopefully we can use some of the euphoria around that and take it into Super Rugby and certainly there's an added sense of anticipation about this season's competition.

“At the end of the of the day we don't control that, it's down to New Zealand rugby and their own franchises to market the competition and hopefully some of that goodwill and euphoria will carry over to Super Rugby.”

Peters has already scotched South African hopes of an extra franchise to allow the Southern Kings to join a 16-team competition from next year, and said expansion was highly unlikely to be revisited for another three years.

“The new conference format system has, by its nature, an equal number teams in each country or it doesn't work,” he said.

“And we have sold that format to our broadcasters and commercial partners through to 2015 so that is the next time we could realistically consider expansion.”

One result of the Crusaders' plight last season was their match against South Africa's Sharks in front of 35,000 at Twickenham in London.

At the time, Peters was quoted as saying he would like to see more such matches but now says there are major obstacles to a repeat.

“London was a huge success in showcasing Super Rugby as a brand in the northern hemisphere. In terms of commercial success, not so much,” he said.

“Looking forward, we would want to be pretty careful about how often we did that. We've sold those games to broadcaster and commercial partners in our own territories.

“And also the fans, they want to see their teams playing at home not in London. So there are some pretty big factors commercially and in terms of brand that would determine whether we would do that again in the same way.

“You do it for brand purposes to reap potential commercial benefits in the future but that's got to be balanced against what you've sold and what your fans want.” – Reuters

Therese Owen met Die Antwoord's 'Ninja' to find out how a reactionary country, the US, fell in love with zef culture.

The story was never about Die Antwoord signing to Interscope Records. The story was always going to be about what happened when Die Antwoord told Interscope to go f*** itself.

“Its amazing,” commented an SA music industry insider. “Ninja stuck it to the biggest record company in the world. They tried to censure him and he said: ‘F*** you, I’ll walk.’ They never thought he’d walk and he walked. Lady Gaga, Eminem, Marilyn Manson, or whatever big stars have never told Interscope to f*** off. But Ninja did.”

Yeah, well, Ninja, aka Max Normal (dress code strictly formal), aka Watkin Tudor Jones III, is in the habit of telling record companies where to get off. And the fact that Interscope’s head, Jimmy Iovine, thought he could control such a wildly insane spirit speaks volumes about Iovine’s ego.

Ninja cannot and will not be controlled when it comes to his music. While this is an admirable quality in any artist, Ninja is also known in the SA music industry for his temperamental nature. That, and the fact that he loses interest in his projects in his tireless quest to continually reinvent himself.

By now we all know that America (and that includes middle America) has fallen in love with Die Antwoord. According to artists such as The Parlotones and Goldfish who tour the US, the first thing the Americans ask when they discover they are South African is not: “Wow, Nelson Mandela?” It is: “OMG, you’re like from South Africa! Wow, do you know Die Ant Woord?” (US accent).

They appeared on The Late Show With David Letterman, are the face for Alexander Wang and were pictured in the front row at New York Fashion Week – and all this in the past month.

They are touring the US and are riding high on Youtube with their endless number of controversial videos.

Fellow band member Yo-Landi Vi$$er’s hot, young body inspires the dark side of male sexuality – naughty little schoolgirl kinda freak-sex fantasies.

But that aside, why have the Americans gone gaga for a trio who don’t even sing in their first language? Their second album, Ten$ion, is a mixture of hard-core techno and rapping with raw lyrics and sentiments expressed all in the name of zef.

“The US has been raped of content,” explained the talkative Ninja from his hotel in Chicago.

“They gave us everything from cowboy movies to war films. They are big on presentation and we deliver good presentations in our videos. The Americans love us. They come dressed as Yo-Landi. They mosh to our music. But we are also sold out from Poland to Japan. For us, we are the answer.”

Their latest single, I Fink U Freeky, is a prime example of their visual presentation.

“It’s like when you whisper in someone’s ear. If you say you like someone for the first time, it is a softly-spoken phrase, but the actual feeling is so powerful. It was a mood. When we were making the song, I told DJ Hi-Tek to do it f****** Mortal Combat-style, but also make it an opera, build it up.

“It was the hardest song to make a video for so far. We tried to make the video three times before we got it right.

“The bathroom scene is the most intimate scene because that is the most intimate you can be, to let someone watch you bath.

“When we create music, DJ Hi-Tek, Yo-Landi and I must freak out about the song first and then we put it out there. We don’t care if people don’t like it. It’s real to us. It’s emotional to us. If they get the same ‘furiosity’ as us, then it is amazing. If you like us you are right. If you don’t like us you are wrong.”

Woah, easy with the ego, young Ninja. Although, we should be used to it by now. Ninja does come with an ego. He wasn’t always Ninja, though. As Waddy he was part of The Original Evergreens, the first hip hop group to be signed to a major label in SA. This was in the mid-1990s. But he soon lost interest and legend has it, he wandered into the forests of Knysna.

He returned as the hallowed Max Normal with one of the best albums of all time, Songs From the Mall. It was around this time that Eminem released his debut, The Slim Shady LP, and unfortunately the comparisons between two white boy rappers was inevitable. The sad reality was that Max Normal was first and far better.

Ninja is a brilliant rapper and a dynamic live performer. In fact, he is one of the most talented artists to have come out of SA.

Max Normal led to Max Normal TV which was an experiment in structured insanity. But that, too, wasn’t enough for his insatiable musical mind. Konstruktus would eventually lead to Die Antwoord and the rest is history.

Ninja has always placed great emphasis on visuals, but with Die Antwoord he has successfully integrated controversial viral video campaigns with his crazy beats.

The theme running throughout their videos is one of suggested violence and not-so-suggested violence. Yo-Landi is vicious, Hi-Tek is terrifying and Ninja stares into your very soul.

“In terms of video per- formances, if you look at Evil Boy, my performance has changed. My face was closed in the earlier videos.

“With the track F*k Julle Naaiers, we worked with these criminals who had come straight out of Pollsmoor. I noticed the way they looked at the camera. They looked like hyenas or lions about to go in for the kill. They taught me how to open my face. Most of them have landed back in jail again.”

Well, that video of real-life gangsters is not as controversial as what they have to say about Interscope’s Iovine. In almost every song, they have a dig at their former boss. They vindictively paint him as a slimy sex pest who enjoys abusing his power.

“In the beginning he was cool, when we were first signed and we were being familiar with him. Like, this guy is huge. He lives next door to Hugh Hefner and produced Bruce Springsteen. Then, at the end, he had his b**** boys referencing us.”

Die Antwoord’s “screw you” attitude to Interscope has gained Ninja even more street cred. The group also apparently walked away with a few million in their pockets.

Ten$ion has been released on their own label and distributed by Universal in SA. It is also Ninja’s most commercial album in his fluctuating career.

The album combines hard-core Euro techno beats with Afrikaans rhymes that are performed mostly by Yo-Landi.

But when Ninja kicks in, you can hear and see why Die Antwoord are on their way to becoming superstars, because talent like that cannot be ignored.

This is only part one.

Playing videogames could actually be good for your eyesight - at least if you have trouble seeing in the first place.

London - It is a discovery unlikely to be popular with parents who tell their children the very opposite.

Playing videogames could actually be good for your eyesight – at least if you have trouble seeing in the first place.

Just ten hours of gaming over four weeks dramatically improved the vision of young men and women who as babies were almost blind. After 40 hours of playing, they were able to read two extra lines on an eye chart, a study found.

The simple but effective therapy was devised by Daphne Maurer, of McMaster University in Canada, whose work was inspired by previous studies which showed that playing action games improved vision in adults whose eyesight was already good.

Those with healthy eyes are believed to benefit from playing due to the brain forming new connections or dormant cells waking up. It could mean just a few hours a week playing games such as the type which simulate sports on the Wii console helps boost eyesight. The adults in Professor Maurer study, aged between 19 and 31, were born with cataracts in both eyes and as babies could see light but not detail. Although their cataracts were removed, their vision did not return to normal.

In the experiment, they played a game in which they took on the role of a solider shooting the enemy or a gunman firing at aliens.

After 40 hours, as well as being able to see further down the eye chart, the volunteers were better at distinguishing the direction of a movement and at telling faces apart.

Presenting her findings to the American Association for the Advancement of Science conference, Professor Maurer said: “Videogames have got a lot going for them in terms of them being an optimal visual therapy.”

Her other studies suggest that the first ten years of life “hardwire” the part of the brain critical to decoding visual information. If it doesn’t receive enough information, due to cataracts for example, it struggles to make up the loss.

The game helped with this because it forced the brain to work hard, by making it process information on the line of fire and “threats” on the periphery. Less dynamic games such as Tetris would not have the same effect. - Daily Mail

The Great Wall, the Forbidden City – what’s not to like, asks Theresa Taylor.

The man standing at the front of the bus smiles widely. “My name is Robert,” he says. “But you can call me Bruce Lee. Because I am your tour guide, but I’m also your body guard.”

This was our welcome speech from the man who was going to show us some of the most famous of Beijing’s sites. For Robert Ren, six years of working as a tour guide means he has visited the Great Wall over 1 000 times and a sense of humour helps him see it all again with a smile.

Just a day before, we had been welcomed to the People’s Republic of China by the Beijing Capital International Airport, the second busiest passenger airport in the world. On arrival, passengers are herded into an underground train, which bridges the 7km between terminal three and the rest of the airport. It was a high speed welcome to the world’s new superpower.

Ren warned us: it would be hard to balance visiting of some of Beijing’s world famous ancient sites, such as an extremely long wall – said to be the only human-made object visible from space –and a palace with enough room for 2000 concubines.

“Perhaps the men in our group will have the time to see the Forbidden City and Tienanmen Square as they won’t be as busy shopping as the women,” Ren joked.

He wasn’t far off the truth. Somehow I bought three handbags, but missed both the city and the square.

But the 20 million residents of this Chinese capital seem stuck in a similar befuddlement. Beijing is the transport hub of China and the place all major Chinese businesses keep their offices. Two-year-old children in ripoff Ugg boots use iPhones as toys and shiny highrise buildings twist and turn against the frozen sky. The young and up and coming are drawn like moths from other cities into the capital’s high energy streets.

On the streets are bicycles, one of the symbols of China before its industrial revolution, when pedalling was the only affordable mode of transportation. But modern day Chinese bicycles are electric and have tiny engines and heated gloves to protect the hands of their riders. Pedestrians strolling the streets wear Hello Kitty face masks to protect themselves from the pollution caused by the high population.

Despite all these modern day accessories, the highrises remain neighbours with the ancient. I’s as in Taoism, a religion that has a strong influence on Chinese culture, yin must be balanced with yang. As with the sun being balanced by the moon, or meat being balanced by vegetables; in Beijing, modernisation is balanced by remainants of the ancient.

That said, five million cars roam the roads of Beijing. This is a city with crazier traffic than Johannesburg. Although the neat yellow and ever-green taxis are not the dented beasts of our CBD, their driving is just as predatory. Side mirrors are neglected as they swerve in and out between bicycles and buses.

The locals talk about traffic in hushed tones as if it’s some feared demi-god, whose ebbs and flows must be obeyed. And with due merit. A South African living in the city told me that western residents in Beijing hire drivers, as they are too afraid to take to the wheel alone. One of my travel companions reported being brought home from a Beijing night club by a driver so drunk, he was half slumped against the wheel and heaved as he took the corners.

The Chinese have a saying: “When Beijing is safe, the whole of China is safe”, because it is the city’s capital. Nine hundred years ago, Beijing was choosen as the country’s capital in part because of it being strategically placed to keep out enemies. Thus it is very close to the Great Wall of China, built for protection of China’s northern border. Ironically, that which once kept enemies out, now draws tourists in. Stretching almost 9 000km, its construction goes back to the 5th century BC and it was completed at the end of the Ming dynasty in the 16th century.

Countless Chinese died while building the wall and it became a symbol of war and death for families that were broken up as their husbands and sons were sent to the wall for years at end. The bodies of the dead were simply used as extra building material for the wall.

Although parts of the wall have decayed, it is still mighty and powerful. No one in our group was prepared for its steepness. So steep, in fact, it should be renamed the Great Stairs of China. It’s potentially the best workout of your life, as each time you reach a milestone you just want to keep climbing and climbing. Take a picnic lunch and flat shoes.

But the wall is not the only example of ambitious Chinese building. The Ming Dynasty Tombs, which contain the 13 emperors of the Ming Dynasty, are large underground temples, all built by human hands between the 14th and the 17th centuries. Only one tomb has been opened, Emperor Dingling’s tomb, with some controversy because during the Cultural Revolution which started in 1966, Chinese leader Mao Zedong ordered the destruction of many of the tomb’s precious artifacts and burning of the emperor and his empress’s bodies. The tomb remains an architectural feat, beginning 27m underground ... but proposals to excavate further tombs remain unapproved.

Also a product of the Ming Dynasty is the biggest imperial palace in the world, the Forbidden City. It is reputed to have 9 999.5 rooms and space for 2 000 concubines.

“With 2000 concubines you can’t remember their names,” Ren pauses, holding back a laugh, “only their numbers.”

According to Chinese legend, when the palace was built the emperor built 10 000 rooms. But the Jade Emperor, an important Taoist god, told the emperor that his own palace in heaven had 10 000 rooms, and an emporer was not allowed to have the same number of rooms in his palace as God. So the emporer removed one room and replaced it with a half room. But how does one create half a room? Simple. A room has four pillars. A room with six pillars is one and a half rooms.

As famous as China’s ancient architecture, is the country’s jade and silk. Jade is sacred and virtuous, a thing of beauty and purity in Chinese culture. For the Chinese, while metals like gold can be given a value, jade is invaluable and they wear pendants and bracelets of the stone and adorn their homes with jade statues.

Trade in silk from China has stretched across centuries. The string from a single silk worm can be up to 1 600m long – and is the backbone of the original “made in China” product, silk. Little changed since the days os the ancient Silk Route, silk fabrics, duvets and sheets continue to be produced and, at the model silk factory in Beijing, you receive a lively demonstration of how the process works.

The only potential disappointment in Beijing is the food. Famed for its Peking Duck, don’t go to Beijing expecting traditional Chinese food to taste like the Chow Mein (which is an American-Chinese dish) from your local Kung Fo Kitchen. Many of the dishes are unrecognisable to the non-Asian eye. We were served fish, so thickly coated in a brown sauce that it looked like it was killed in a nuclear disaster. Odd gelatin cubes floated in a yellow liquids, indistinguishable meats swam in sauces and a greasy crab cried for help from its fried enclosure. Also, in traditional Chinese food, there are no separate courses so you can pick up a pastry covered ball, assuming it's a savory pie only to have a sickly sweet surprise.

At lunch, one of the ladies pointed out a meat slice covered by a fatty looking substance. “What's that?” she asked Ren. He replied, “Pork.” “It doesn't look like pork,” she said. “Well its a mixture of pork and beef,” he said. After a few gasps and whispers of “Maybe it's dog” Ren confessed. “The truth is I don't like Chinese food,” he said, “I prefer McDonald’s.”

If You Go...

Since last month SAA does three direct flights weekly between Johannesburg and Beijing. Flights take 14 and a half hours and range in price depending on the season.

Within the CBD signs are demarcated in Mandarin and English, however language can be a problem as many residents do not speak English. Keep a piece of paper on you with the address of your hotel wirtten in Mandarin incase you get lost.

Taxi's are cheap and the recommended method of transport for tourists as public transport is difficult to navigate without Mandarin

Weather is extreme and will average at 30C in summer and can go as low as -15C in winter. - Saturday Star