SA’s Catholic bishops will not tolerate condom demonstrations in their Aids awareness programme, reports Mapula Sibanda An Aids awareness worker has been fired — for showing people how to use a condom. Chrys Matubatuba, 31, an Aids awareness co-ordinator for the South African Catholic Bishops Conference (SACBC) says his demise began last year after he […]

Justin Pearce A CIVIL suit against the African National Congress, Nelson Mandela and Cyril Ramaphosa arising from last year’s Shell House shootings has been stalled on the grounds that the applicant’s arguments were too vague. Masele Ndlovu, whose husband was shot dead in Johannesburg on March 28 1994, has brought the suit to seek compensation […]

Movable Feast Humphrey Tyler THE first thing you do when you arrive at the Imperial Hotel in Pietermaritzburg in KwaZulu/Natal is wonder why on earth you didn’t bring your horse. This has nothing to do with the food. It is the early colonial atmosphere. (Actually, I don’t ride horses. Horses give me hay fever.) But […]

Jacques Magliolo reports on the latest two firms to come to Adding to this year’s spate of listings on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange were German chemical giant Hoechst and Eastern Cape-based Sovereign Foods Investments. The market capitalisation — issued shares multiplied by the share price — amount to R322-million, boosting the R80-billion already added in […]

One offshoot of the controversy surrounding Iscor’s proposed Saldanha mill is that the locals are finally being consulted, reports Rehana Rossouw The good news about Iscor’s planned Saldanha steel mill is the emergence of real consultation and debate at grassroots level. This was well illustrated last Friday when cabinet members and members of the Western […]

Amid all the sharp and confusing exchanges between the African National Congress and the Inkatha Freedom Party, a strategy is emerging of the type that President Nelson Mandela is so astute at putting in On the one side, the police and various special investigators are closing in on IFP leaders and allies implicated in violence. […]

BALLET: Stanley Peskin IN Marius Petipa’s Paquita, Roland Petit’s Carmen and Mikhail Fokine’s Firebird, Pact Ballet presents three works that are luxurious and richly satisfying in quite different Paquita (1881), originally a three-act ballet which has survived as a series of divertissements, has been given a new production. An impressively ornamented archway (designed by Riaan […]

Ann Eveleth The Wildlife Society of Southern Africa has called for the creation of an environmental court to hear cases involving environmental disputes. Wildlife Society representative Jeremy Ridl, who made the submission to the first public hearing of the KwaZulu/Natal Constitutional Committee in Durban this week, said the multi-faceted nature of environmental disputes requires people […]

Reg Rumney Housing subsidies and infrastructure have the biggest chunk of allocations from the Reconstruction and Development Programme Fund — R1,4-billion out of R7,8-billion. This is revealed in Minister without Portfolio Jay Naidoo’s report to Parliament last week, Taking the RDP Forward. The document shows R1,4-billion has been allocated from the RDP Fund to boost […]

Justin Pearce South African aromatherapists have approached the Constitutional Assembly to try to gain official recognition for their profession. A submission to the Constitutional Assembly made by Moyra Metcalfe, chairperson of the Association of Aromatherapists Southern Africa argues “that each individual has a right to choose and maintain natural, holistic health. “He should be given […]