Gaye Davis A NATIONAL survey of political responses to last year’s nurses’ strike has revealed that “wholly inadequate” health information systems are hindering the government’s ability to communicate with employees and deal with industrial action. Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Health canvassed the national and provincial health departments for information about the nature and extent of […]

The new Constitution could give local government a better place in the hierarchy, writes Marion Edmunds The new Constitution is likely to raise local government from its Cinderella status to a position in the new South Africa where it can compete with its two ugly sisters, national and provincial government, for revenue and political status. […]

POLITICS: Two very different responses to the recent attack on liberals Margaret Legum IN her autobiography, Mamphela Ramphele quotes Steve Biko’s opinion that white liberals “lacked a coherent critique of racism and its socio-economic manifestations”. Since then white liberals have been accused of unconscious racism, patronising behaviour and refusing to countenance criticism of themselves, while […]

The Open Democracy Bill has already been before a Cabinet committee and is expected to go before the full Cabinet in the next three weeks. It is a long and complex Bill intended to give teeth to the government’s undertaking to give meaning to the idea of open democracy. If enacted, the Bill would give […]

THE chief executive officer of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Dr Biki Minyuku, says he will not differentiate between the victims of apartheid atrocities and those who suffered at the hands of the liberation movements. Minyuku says it is his overall objective to unify individuals who have suffered losses during the years of apartheid, irrespective […]

FINE ART: Ruth Sack GHETTO Opera House, massive and heavy, presides over Lucky Sibiya’s exhibition at the Everard Read Gallery. Into the multifarious sub-divisions of its architecture of bone, string, skin, paint, decaying machine parts, driftwood, rust, one is drawn without resistance or desire for explanation. Sibiya seems to be having some kind of party. […]

Scaw Metals’ new stake in a Chilean foundry opens the door to one of the world’s biggest growth markets in mining, reports Karen Harverson Scaw Metals of Germiston, part of Anglo American Industrial Corporation (Amic), has clinched a $12-million deal to buy a 50% stake in a foundry in Chile. The deal will enable Scaw […]

THEATRE: Shaun de Waal PERHAPS one of the good things about the reshuffling of the arts councils will be that each province gets to see more of the others’ work — such as the two Capab productions directed by Marthinus Basson now showing in Johannesburg. (And let’s hope that one day he restages his much-lauded […]

THEATRE: Peter Frost THE Truth Fairy’s in town. A sharper-than-ever Pieter-Dirk Uys, not content with the abolition of the apartheid system, is now targeting the forgetful South African public with its recent past, using the Truth and Reconciliation Commission as gunpowder. The result is big, entertaining bangs. Truth Omissions (at the Baxter in Cape Town) […]

her With a 2-million kwacha (R8 000) price on her head, two of her colleagues already in prison, and police searching her friends’ homes for a clue to her whereabouts, Lucy Sichone still managed this week to publish her regular column in the outspoken Zambian newspaper The Post. Dr Robinson Nabulyato, speaker of the Zambian […]