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 […]

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 […]

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, […]

The attack on the Koeberg nuclear plant was a chilling demonstration of the vulnerability of an atomic installation to attack as well as a reflection on the incompetence of South African security. The authorities at Koeberg have since made the extraordinary claim that they not only anticipated the attack, but had pin-pointed the date. In […]

Staff at the SABC and Sowetan are accusing their managements of kowtowing to the ANC, report Marion Edmunds and Rehana Rossouw Staff in the newsrooms of both the South African Broadcasting Corporation and Sowetan, the country’s largest daily, charge their independence has been compromised, and accuse management of “meddling” to curry favour with the African […]

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 […]

Hazel Friedman “ORWELLIAN state interference,” claims Helen Suzman’s new liberal foundation of draft legislation proposing tighter control of South Africa’s NGO-sector — but many of the organisations who would be affected say the red alert is mostly a red herring. Formed to promote liberal democratic values, the Helen Suzman Foundation — due to be launched […]

Simon Segal Leslie Boyd, new chairman of Business South Africa (BSA), is used to the trenches of business politics. It was he who played no small part in the merger between the then Association of Commerce (Assocom) and the Federated Chamber of Industries (FCI) to form the South African Chamber of Business (Sacob). Boyd, also […]

Sharon Hammond and Hazel Friedman Four years after a high concentration of arsenic was first found in drinking water at Anglovaal’s New Consort gold mine in Barberton, Mpumalanga, the poison is alleged to have claimed its first victim. An investigation into the mine started recently after 2 000 residents were poisoned by drinking water in […]

Chris McGreal follows a forlorn dirt track to Oloibiri, where oil was first struck in the Niger Delta 40 years ago ASMALL, rectangular sign on the dirt track into Oloibiri is the sole monument to the crucible of modern Nigeria. “This is Oloibiri, the goose that lays the golden egg. You are welcome,” it says. […]