Staff Reporter
No image available
/ 22 April 1998

‘It was the CCB, not me’

WEDNESDAY, 12.30AM: FORMER Civil Co-operation Bureau operative Ferdi Barnard shrugged off any personal involvement in the 1989 murder of Wits academic David Webster in the Pretoria High Court on Tuesday, admitting, however, that the CCB could have been involved, and that some of his CCB colleagues may have taken part in the murder. A lucid […]

No image available
/ 21 April 1998

Ferdi Barnard denies all

TUESDAY, 12.15PM: APARTHEID dirty tricks operative Ferdi Barnard on Monday denied in the Pretoria High Court that he killed anti-apartheid activist Dr David Webster in 1989. Barnard, who faces 34 charges, ranging from murder and attempted murder to intimidation and fraud, did however admit to monitoring former activist and present Justice Minister Dullah Omar for […]

No image available
/ 21 April 1998

Trevor Huddleston dies

TUESDAY, 12.00NOON: ARCHBISHOP Trevor Huddleston, the Anglican priest who spoke up for the poor of Sophiatown in the 1940s and 1950s, then became leader of the international Anti-Apartheid Movement, has died in London, aged 84. Huddleston’s book Naught For Your Comfort played a key role in alerting the world to apartheid during the mid-1950s. Posted […]

No image available
/ 21 April 1998

Two fight for Kriel’s seat

TUESDAY, 8.30AM: TWO candidates face off for the vacant seat of Western Cape Premier Hernus Kriel, who resigned on Monday. Health MEC Peter Marais, an outspoken hardliner, is the leading coloured National Party leader and the likely choice to hold the vital coloured vote in the next election. Rival candidate Gerald Morkel is the Community […]

No image available
/ 21 April 1998

US, UK condemn Abacha

TUESDAY, 5.00PM: NIGERIA, which has just replaced planned presidential elections with a referendum, has been criticised for the move by the United Kingdom and the United States. The elections for a civilian president were cancelled after all five authorised political parties nominated military ruler General Sani Abacha as their candidate. Now Nigerian will have two […]

No image available
/ 21 April 1998

Hostage talks promising

TUESDAY, 10.30AM: A SOMALI faction leader negotiating the release of 10 kidnapped foreign aid workers, including South African pilot Robbie Burt, says the talks are “encouraging”. “We cannot promise their freedom, but the negotiations are encouraging. No more threats will be made to kill them and negotiations will be carried out in an orderly manner,” […]

No image available
/ 17 April 1998

The judge who was too late

Who is . . . Vuka Tshabalala? Swapna Prabhakaran and Mungo Soggot Judges rarely open their mouths outside court. When they do, it is never about their cases. And it is almost never about themselves. It was therefore a surprising decision on the part of Judge Vuka Tshabalala to abandon the rule of silence outside […]

No image available
/ 17 April 1998

The nightclub library

What is the appeal of sitting in a kind of bar, staring into a computer screen?Swapna Prabhakaran investigated Internet cafs Looking for a lounge where they serve real coffee, where the music alternatively spins between kwaito and techno? Or would you rather sip sherry at a nice cosy cabaret? You can do all that and […]

No image available
/ 17 April 1998

Not the Rubicon, part II

A decade ago the satirist Pieter-Dirk Uys portrayed a beer-paunched yob drunkenly staggering around the stage, yelling: “I’m a white South African – so fuck you all!” The audience would giggle nervously at their recognition of this familiar bully, the quintessential macho rugger-bugger, reckless, brainless and loud, flaunting his bigotry at all those unfortunate enough […]