CINEMA: Justin Pearce THE unique charms of Zero Patience can be gleaned from a quick run through of this film’s musical numbers: a bluesy solo sung by a blonde, beehived HIV virus; a Victorian scientist, who has discovered the secret of eternal youth, delivering an ode to enlightenment values, called Let’s All Be Empiricists; a […]

Marion Edmunds THE Bophuthatswana Broadcasting Corporation’s (BopBC) new highly paid chief executive, Cawe Mhlati, has been stung with accusations of reneging on agreements with the SABC after less than a week in the broadcaster’s hot SABC officials have criticised her for her conduct in meetings to discuss the future of public broadcasting in South Africa. […]

OPERA: Coenraad Visser FIRST KwaZulu-Natal gave us a Zulu Macbeth. Now, with equally striking effect, it gives us Mozart’s The Magic Flute in an African setting. This production is the fledgling Opera Africa’s debut. It is entirely fitting that it should transfer from the Playhouse in Durban to the Roodepoort stage, where so many enterprising […]

Gaye Davis THE man in charge of compiling the document which will lay the basis for South Africa’s future foreign policy was in charge of the Department of Foreign Affairs’ “image- building” section at a time when sanctions were beginning to bite hard. Dr Gerrit Olivier returned this month from his posting as South Africa’s […]

The transport minister is embroiled in allegations that he has linked ministerial support of Cape Town’s Olympic bid with moving Parliament to Pretoria, reports Rehana Rossouw IN a remarkable war of words, leaders campaigning to keep Parliament in the Mother City this week repeated claims that Transport Minister Mac Maharaj wanted to link his department’s […]

Research into teacher training has revealed that the system is not making the grade, writes Philippa Garson THE first national teacher education audit to be conducted in South Africa has uncovered an alarmingly inadequate teacher education system in need of fundamental restructuring. Results of the audit, released this week, show that the quality of teacher […]

A proposed waterfront development in Durban’s run-down Point is being plagued by controversy, report Ann Eveleth and David THREE of the world’s most colourful businessmen — Australian media mogul Kerry Packer, legendary British gambler John Aspinall, and Anglo-French “Marmite king” Jimmy “Goldenballs” Goldsmith — have been caught up in a furious investment squabble over Durban’s […]

‘Former consultant to the ANC newspaper project Moeletsi Mbeki argues that the ANC did not welcome Tony O’Reilly into South Africa to monopolise the English-language media AS one of the people who have been intimately involved in the African National Congress’ efforts to create diversity in our country’s mass media, I welcome Bruce Cohen’s contribution […]

RARELY in South African public life can a document have been produced which is as politically explosive as the 64-page indictment (including addenda) presented last Friday in the Magnus Malan case. What makes it paradoxical is that there are, as of yet, no political repercussions. The explanation, of course, is that it is an indictment […]

Malan trial: Before the KwaMakhutha massacre, there was the Mpophomeni massacre. Both were connected to the SADF’s military support of Hazel Friedman THE murder of three union shop stewards on a lonely road near Mpophomeni on the night of December 5 1986 will be remembered as the beginning of the most violent period in this […]