Yearly Archives: 2001

Who is this Father Christmas guy, and how is it that he exerts such hypnotic power? asks John Matshikiza I don’t know where the whole thing started. But it would be discourteous, in this season of good cheer, to point fingers at any other member of the family. Suffice it to say that, somewhere between […]

There are, these days, supposed to be no victims no living ones, anyway. There are only survivors. There are rape survivors, Aids survivors, racism survivors, assault survivors you name it. I am an African National Congress survivor. Only the dead, it seems, can now respectably lay claim to having been victims. And the dead, as […]

South Africa and the global economy Andrew Feinstein When I arrived at the University of Cambridge to undertake postgraduate studies in economics, a famed post-Keynesian professor asked me where I had done my undergraduate economics. I responded that I hadn’t, that my first two degrees had been in clinical psychology.”A far better training for studying […]

Fiona Macleod In the reality game that people play on the planet, South Africans have evicted more than 50 species and nominated hundreds more for eviction. We also have a fair number of popular favourites voted to win the survival race. An ambitious report being prepared for the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development shows […]

David Macfarlane and Mungo Soggot Kanthan Pillay, a top executive at e.tv, has lodged a criminal defamation charge against noseweek editor Martin Welz for an in-depth analysis entitled”Backstage with the pricks and big dicks at e.tv”. Among other things, the article broached the alleged sexual antics of e.tv bosses, and the station’s allegedly dictatorial and […]

Media freedom is likely to come under increasing attack in Zimbabwe in the new year Chris McGreal This article will be punishable by up to two years in prison under the new media Bill likely to become law in Zimbabwe early next year. For a start, it quotes The Herald newspaper in Harare a government […]

Stefaans Brmmer and Mungo Soggot Cell C was tight-lipped this week about its settlement with three businessmen who in a bizarre lawsuit accused the cellular operator’s Saudi owners of not paying them a $2-million”success fee” for helping to secure its licence. The settlement with Cell C’s owner, Saudi Oger, was struck with Alfred Oosthuizen, formerly […]

channel vision Robert Kirby This is the last column of the year and, as is the habit of columnists, I take a fearful look across the year behind us to see what really stood out in television. No prizes for guessing that the coverage of the World Trade Center attacks was the winner in a […]

Maggie Davey On certain days when all is right with the world, and the sun tilts at a fine angle, it can make sense to know that Frank Sinatra’s favourite colour was orange. Or that practically every item in the TV series Buck Rogers in the 25th Century had rounded edges and art deco design […]

Thabo Mohlala The National Intelligence Services and the South African national gliding team are involved in a row after the NIS cancelled a booking made by the team ahead of the world championships in Mafikeng in December. Team manager Quintin Maine says this threw their plans into disarray. He says as the host nation and […]