FRIDAY, 4.00PM: PUBLIC Services International, a global federation of trade unions that represents 20 million public service workers, including those belonging to the South Africans Municipal Workers’ Union, has condemned the multinational water company Biwater for trying to silence debate about water privatisation in South Africa. Biwater is bidding for contracts for water services in […]
Ivor Powell More than 20 senior leaders of the Inkatha Freedom Party in KwaZulu-Natal have secretly defected to the African National Congress before the June election. A top ANC leader in the province told the Mail & Guardian that at least six of the turncoats are members of the KwaZulu-Natal legislature. The group also includes […]
There’s room for improvement at the South African Music Awards. Peter Makurube has some suggestions On May 13 the South African music industry took time off at the Sun City Superbowl to pat itself on the back. Unlike the cultural boycott busting days, the audience was at least representative of the country’s population. The who’s […]
The Cannes Film Festival got off to an uneasy start last week with Nikita Mikhalkov’s saccharine three-hour melodrama The Barber Of Siberia, a movie with the epic qualities of a Russian winter. By the end of it, no peasant imagined the first shy blooms of springtime more fervently than we awaited the closing credits. Moreover, […]
Tangeni Amupadhi Namibian artists are outraged over what they call “apartheid-style censorship” rearing its head in their democratic country. The outrage was sparked by the Namibian government’s decision to withdraw financial support for a popular play scheduled to be staged at the Market Theatre in Johannesburg next week. The Ministry of Basic Education and Culture […]
Tom McGhie Computer games company Eidos has teamed up with rock star David Bowie, his wife Iman, and the best-selling author Michael Crichton in two deals designed to create hit games. Eidos has signed a long-term publishing deal with Timeline Studios, North Carolina, for games based on original material to be written by Timeline co-founder […]
Marianne Merten It was a bitter-sweet moment this week for 12 Cape Town families who finally received compensation for their homes and land lost to the Group Areas Act more than 30 years ago. Bitter, because most of them cannot return to the homes they lost when the apartheid government declared they were not white […]
LESS than a week before a ceasefire is to begin in Sierra Leone, rebels launched two attacks near the eastern city of Kenema, the pro-government Ecomog intervention force said on Thursday. Ecomog spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Chris Olukolade said the first attack occurred on Wednesday at Mano Junction, just north of Kenema, 240km east of the capital, […]
ANNUAL passenger car sales worldwide will barely top 32-million in 2000, 3,3-million vehicles fewer than last year’s turnover, reducing sales to levels last seen in the 1980s, Britain’s Economist Intelligence Unit said on Thursday. “Overall world car sales will not exceed their 1997 peak volumes again until 2003,” the EIU said in an abstract from […]
was last week Andy Capostagno Rugby The sound of Newlands last Sunday was the sound of crumbs of comfort being swept up. Yes, the Stormers had lost to the Cats, but no one got badly injured, the bonus point for a close loss ensured a home semi-final and other results meant that the Crusaders were […]