OWN CORRESPONDENT, Durban | Friday 9.00am. THE government will raise its low-cost housing subsidies by R1000 across the board from next April, Housing Minister Sankie Mtembi-Mahanyele announced on Thursday. The increase is to offset the effects of inflation and a consequent rise in the price of building materials. Speaking at the Institute for Housing of […]

David Gleason : A SECOND LOOK Anglo American Corporation chair Julian Ogilvie-Thompson’s announcement last week that it is to become a United Kingdom registered company with a primary listing on the London Stock Exchange poses as many questions as it does answers. The decision to shift Anglo’s head office to Britain follows the path blazed […]

Maureen Barnes : Down the tube Last week, in what was the most riveting programme to date, Special Assignment dealt with the extraordinary affair of Vito Palazzolo, the man who seems to have enjoyed special consideration not only from the Nats, but from the present establishment. The team did a neat investigation of the background […]

Mungo Soggot The Cabinet has given Minister of Public Service and Administration Zola Skweyiya an extra R300-million to pay civil servants and fund the transformation of the public service. The increase is about 10% of the government’s R3,4-billion budget for what the public service department terms “the improvement of conditions of service”. The increase was […]

Anthony Orliange Manga and Sori are youngsters about to finish school. In the evening they meet, “to revise for exams”, as they tell their parents. Actually, they share amorous moments of tenderness in Sori’s car, or outside cafs. Tired of concealing their relationship, they try to come out. But under such dire circumstances they are […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT and AFP, Freetown | Friday 7.30pm. FODAY Sankoh, the rebel leader who waged war against four Sierra Leonean governments and described himself as a “man of peace”, was sentenced to death on treason and murder charges in Freetown High Court on Friday. The leader of the Revolutionary United Front launched his rebellion in […]

Poor West African fishermen, prevented by an international treaty from fishing off their own shores, are forced to buy their own sardines in European cans, reports Paul Brown Mauritanian fishermen sit in the harbour gazing out to sea. In the distance, where Africa bulges out into the Atlantic, they watch sunlight glinting off other men’s […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Bujumbura | Friday 9.00pm. BURUNDI’S government, opposition and rebels on Thursday wrapped up a third round of talks aimed at ending six years of civil war with an agreement to meet again in January, but with few concrete decisions. The next round is set for January 18 to continue a peace process begun […]

Maggie Davey Forty tons of apartheid government files are estimated to have been destroyed by the National Intelligence Service (NIS) in 1993, according to Professor Charles Villa- Vicencio, director of research at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). Villa-Vicencio was speaking at a workshop organised by Wits Graduate School last week on future access to […]

Renowned cultural writer Mark Gevisser talks to Matthew Krouse about his journey to the essence of one of Johannesburg’s unique forgotten heroes In the city of Johannesburg, overrun with live chickens and minibus taxis, Anstey’s building retains its stark majesty. Not only because it’s a well maintained survivor of the city’s New York age, but […]