The dynamics of black participation in corporate South Africa are complex as has been revealed in the past year, writes Meshack As the past year saw political power shifting into largely black hands, 1995 saw gleams of what black economic empowerment may mean. The strident calls, the blinding euphoria and widespread upsurge of ventures covered […]

Leon Perlman The Internet, introduced to the world by the United States military as a method of ensuring uninterrupted global communication, is providing a benevolent peace dividend — as a unique conduit for international commerce. But while many companies vacillate over whether to commit to the new business paradigm, a new enemy has emerged — […]

IF apartheid has any beneficial heritage for the new society we are trying to create it is an abhorrence of social engineering. That is to say an abhorrence of those like Hendrik Verwoerd who — whether acting out of a sense of moral or intellectual superiority, or on private communications with the Almighty — attempt […]

Stand-up comedy is enjoying an international renaissance — and South Africans are getting in on the act, as DAVID LE PAGE MOST evenings at the moment, the Johannesburg Civic Theatre foyer is bustling with theatregoers missing a great opportunity: that of going to see — totally free of charge – — the Swopping Comics crowd […]

Vuyo Mvoko The Ministry of Education says it wants to avoid a collision with the Witwatersrand University Council for now, but threatened yesterday if the council did not heed proposals it had made on Wednesday, it would “act”. “It is not something we want to talk about now … but we have a responsibility to […]

Two innovative ventures are set to improve the Gauteng public’s art literacy levels, reports HAZEL FRIEDMAN THE perfect instrument for assessing art literacy in Gauteng has, to date, been the microscope. And leading the “no-need-to-know” pack are past city councils whose role in cultural promotion has been so negligible — and misguided — as to […]

Chris McGreal THE world has got Nelson Mandela all wrong. You may think of him as the epitome of decency and statesmanship providing a beacon of hope on an unsettled continent. The truth is, he is a bumbling, sex-starved old fool secretly in the pay of the white man. Or, he simply does not know […]

Chris McGreal The Rwanda war crimes tribunal has issued its first international arrest warrants for eight men accused of genocide and crimes against humanity during the organised extermination of hundreds of thousands of Tutsis last year. The chief prosecutor, South Africa’s Judge Richard Goldstone, declined to name the accused while their arrest is sought in […]

Exiled movements are setting up in South Africa, reports Justin Pearce Willie Nwiido’s family thought he had died on the gallows along with Ken Saro-Wiwa — until they got word he was in South Africa. Wanted in Nigeria for his political activities, the 30- year-old Ogoni doctor went into hiding, only to re-emerge in Johannesburg, […]

Jazz: Meshack Mabogoane THERE are musicians who use sound as the basis for working their beings into living monuments to creativity and expression. The sounds they produce are more than musical, however consummate their accomplishment; they convey something — the very depths, even — of the person. Both musician and music serve as conduits for […]