Gaye Davis A POLITICAL wrangle is looming over who will succeed deputy speaker of the National Assembly Dr Bhadra Ranchod, who has made himself available for a diplomatic post. There is no constitutional provision for power-sharing when it comes to parliamentary positions. The overwhelming majority of committee chairs are held by the African National Congress […]

THEATRE: Hazel Friedman Those who are unacquainted with Greek tragedy may yet be vaguely familiar with the myth of Medea — the woman who murdered her sons when her husband dumped her to become king. But even audiences who were struck by Pier Paolo Pasolini’s 1970 film version — with its bizarre exploration of Freudian […]

The debate over unbundling is once again heating up, reports Aspasia Karras Unbundling has, to a large extent, been viewed as one of the panaceas of the South African economic environment. The Reconstruction and Development Programme considered unbundling as a major solution to the question of competition and black business empowerment, arguing that if the […]

Gaye Davis and Rehana Rossouw THE policeman at the centre of the row over allegations that the National Intelligence Agency was spying on top policemen will not be undergoing a lie-detector test, police said this week. Crime Investigation Service spokesman, senior superintendent Faizel Kader, said superintendent H Moodley had volunteered for a polygraph test, but […]

Jacquie Golding-Duffy THE `new-look’ SABC will hit our screens on February 5 when SABC 1, 2 and 3 take over the reins from CCV, TV1 and NNTV respectively. The grand reshuffling of programmes is an attempt to reach particular language groups at the provincial level. The provincial broadcasts will, at first, be half an hour […]

Thabo Mbeki has accused the print media of a go-slow on affirmative action. Jacquie Golding-Duffy surveys the industry to see if this is true On a head count, local newspapers have not done particularly well in furthering the cause of affirmative action. With more than 80% of the local media controlled by four players, namely: […]

Lynda Loxton The Katz Commission was slated last week for not going far enough in recommending a special tax dispensation for employee share ownership programmes (ESOPs). Msele Corporate and Merchant Bank joint managing director Litha Nyhonyha told the parliamentary joint standing committee on finance that the commission had missed a unique opportunity to promote ESOPs, […]

An installation at the Johannesburg Art Gallery reveals surprising new dimensions to traditional African art and craft, reports RUTH SACK THE status of traditional African crafts and artefacts in Western museums has long been a question of unending debate. Over the years it has been possible to observe, in our museums and galleries, how versions […]

Stefaans Brmmer A late-night visit by Mpumalanga Premier Matthews Phosa has failed, for now, to steer Swaziland’s young monarch towards democracy, but diplomats believe the steady application of `friendly’ pressure from, among others, President Nelson Mandela, will bear fruit. South Africa’s Foreign Affairs Department remained adamant this week it would not `interfere’ in Swaziland’s domestic […]

A row has arisen over illegal funding to self-protection units, writes Anne Eveleth A departmental secretary in Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi’s former homeland office, Stan Armstrong, is being named as a key player in the illegal funding row in which R8,6-million in taxpayers’ money was paid to members of Inkatha’s paramilitary self-protection units (SPUs). KwaZulu-Natal administrative […]