Ann Eveleth Today’s farmworkers are a vocal bunch. Not only do they know that they are getting the short end of the stick, but also that the battery of new land and labour laws are supposed to protect them, and they have strong ideas on why these measures are falling short. Joining forces with about […]

Howard Barrell Only interventions by senior African National Congress members persuaded Thabo Mbeki to appoint the ANC’s Western Cape leader, Ebrahim Rasool, as the party’s candidate for premier in the province. Mbeki, who is president of the ANC, and the party’s deployment committee had favoured parachuting in an alternative to Rasool, according to ANC sources. […]

Andrew Worsdale Movie of the week Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels is by no means a masterpiece, but it’s a well- crafted and ingeniously entertaining comedy-thriller. It is neat, to the point, with just the right doses of action and comedy. Simplistically, it’s a mixture of Danny Boyle’s Shallow Grave and Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp […]

Pagad and the gangsters may at last find common ground – in a Christian church. Marianne Merten reports Reborn Christian Rashied Staggie has joined the Rhema Church. He has become the latest self-confessed gangster to turn to the Bible. It remains to be seen whether his conversion will see him abandoning his multimillion-rand vice network […]

BRITISH national Ian Karl Lowe was sentenced to 10 years in prison by a Moroccan court on Tuesday after nearly four tons of cannabis resin were found aboard a truck he was driving, judicial officials said. The 3910kg load of chira, worth an estimated $50-million, was found hidden under a cargo of clothes destined for […]

RESCUERS may be close to reaching missing miners Lawrence Molise Tsolo and John Befile Delekile as the search was narrowed to an area of about 300 square metres on Wednesday night. Anglogold spokesman Andries Van Zyl said rescue teams have reached the stopes where the missing men were working when the earthquake, measuring 4,6 on […]

EVANS MODISE, a member of the police VIP protection unit and a bodyguard to Deputy President Thabo Mbeki, has pleaded not guilty to a charge of murder, in the Mamelodi Magistrate’s Court. Modise is alleged to have beaten to death a neighbour, Hluphekile Baloyi, on New Year’s Eve, by beating his head against the road. […]

A ONE-ARMED man robbed two women near the Gracelands casino at Secunda of R45 000 on Wednesday. Police spokeswoman Inspector Sibongile Nkosi said on Thursday that the women were taking the money to First National Bank, about 500m from the Foschini branch where they worked, when the one-armed man held them up with a gun.

ACCORDING to delegates to the International Freedom of Expression Exchange conference in Cape Town, a certain Justice Mahapela Lehohla of Lesotho is running a personal vendetta against the press. Lehohla evicts from his court all journalists he considers to be inappropriately dressed, despite the fact that no other judges take umbrage to the same garments. […]

TRADE and Industry Department chief director of business regulation and consumer services Alistair Ruiters has been appointed a commissioner on the Competition Commission, Cabinet announced on Wednesday. The five-year appointment will see the Commission investigate corporate behaviour according to often controversial guidelines outlined in the Competition Act. Ruiters will be leaving the DTI, having been […]