Staff Reporter
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/ 9 January 1998

On the twisted trail of Dulcie’s death

When Evelyn Groenink set out to investigate the murder of Dulcie September, she found herself embroiled in a Kafkaesque world full of French secret service plots and fake publications In March 1990, while investigating Dulcie September’s workplace for the period just prior to her murder, I discovered something odd. The small company across the hallway […]

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/ 9 January 1998

Cooder libre

He’s a white Californian with an internationalist musical style. Janet Smith speaks to guitarist Ry Cooder about his Cuban recordings An old man is dressed for the superb Havana afternoon: dazzling white shoes like ice- creams peeking out from his trouser bottoms; shimmering white hat slithered low over his brows. He lifts his hand to […]

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/ 9 January 1998

Dust-up over cheap vaccine

Marion Edmunds The government is considering taking disciplinary action against an Eastern Cape public health specialist who last year suspended the use of a cheap Korean hepatitis B vaccine in 14 East London clinics because he doubted its efficacy. The head of the department of public health at Cecilia Makiwane Hospital, Dr Costa Gazi, said […]

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/ 9 January 1998

PW’s sweetheart deal

Wonder Hlongwa and Mungo Soggot President Nelson Mandela overruled truth commission legislation guidelines to ensure former state president PW Botha’s legal team was paid almost double the going rate for representing a potential witness. This week Minister of Justice Dullah Omar – who had been part of the negotiations on the massive bill – said […]

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/ 9 January 1998

Fine music for the masses?

Mahluli Mngadi : In your ear Is Fine Music Radio (FMR) just a cosy club for white classical musical lovers masquerading as a community radio station? Station manager Leslie McKenzie vehemently disagrees. He tells me about the ”more handsome, genuine, less automatic sound” that FMR has been striving for. He quotes the station’s mission statement […]

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/ 9 January 1998

Quiet anniversary of a digital icon

The transistor was invented 50 years ago. Joanna Bawa reports on the significance of the device There were only nine days to go to Christmas but the two physicists had other things on their minds. Huddled secretively in a corner of their laboratory, John Bardeen and Walter Brattain were building a primitive device whose impact […]

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/ 9 January 1998

Post-election Kenya’s future in the

balance Now that the elections are over, Kenyans are waiting to see if their country will prosper or slide into internecine violence. Eddie Koch reports There is a place at sea, about two nautical miles from the coastal town of Shimoni and a little north of Kenya’s border with Tanzania, that echoes Ernest Hemingway’s depiction […]

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/ 9 January 1998

Korea Inc up for grabs in bargain sales

Mark Atkinson in Seoul Been to the January sales yet? Picked up any bargains? Britain’s Procter & Gamble has; so too has Germany’s Robert Bosch. Not in the big department stores of London, New York or Paris, of course. This sale is taking place in South Korea, and on offer is more than a new […]

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/ 8 January 1998

Speed the biggest road killer

IN BRIEF PUPIL DEMOS OVER MATRIC The Congress of South African Students (Cosas) plans to picket businesses, private schools and government offices at the end of the month in protest at the poor matric results. The protests will support a Cosas demand that businesses help to sponsor schools, and to object to the continued government […]

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/ 8 January 1998

Mandela’s PW Botha sweetheart deal

THURSDAY, 6.00PM: IT has emerged that President Nelson Mandela overruled truth commission legislation guidelines to ensure that apartheid president PW Botha’s legal team was paid almost double the going rate for representing a potential witness. Justifying the decision this week, Justice Minister Dullah Omar said: “Mr Botha is a former head of state of South […]