CINEMA: Stanley Peskin WRITTEN and directed by Tim Robbins, Bob Roberts (1992) has more than a passing resemblance to Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane (1941), as well as to a number of films by Robert Altman, notably Nashville (1975) and The Player (1992), in which Robbins himself played a corrupt filmmaker. Originally a sketch for Saturday […]

FOUNDATION for Peace and Justice staff member Leslie Liddell has denied reports that she received a loan from Dr Allan Boesak’s troubled foundation. Liddel says she believed she would receive a car from the FPJ as part of her package, but was then told she would have to repay the cost of the car in […]

Weekly Mail Reporter READY or not, Africus: The Johannesburg Biennale — South Africa’s debut on the global fine arts circuit — will be throwing open its doors to the public on Tuesday, February 28. With luck, buildings and roads will have been completed, a dignitary secured to make the opening speeches, and art works will […]

SAILING: Jonathan Spencer Jones THREE weeks into the third leg of the BOC Challenge single-handed around the world race and Christophe Auguin sailing Sceta Calberson has become the first of the entrants remaining in the fleet to round Cape Horn. Auguin, who days earlier had notched up a record 350,4 mile 24-hour run, passed about […]

Annie Mapoma MANAGEMENT at two of Johannesburg’s most popular flea markets, Rosebank and Bruma, are surveying their traders and intend taking serious measures against those who threaten the city’s flourishing flea market industry by overpricing. The issue was brought to light when customers complained they were being ripped-off by certain traders, especially on items like […]

SOCCER: Clinton Asary THE South African under-23 squad’s quest for a place in the finals of the All Africa Games continues this weekend when they visit the mountain kingdom of Lesotho, for the second leg of their second round encounter on Sunday. South Africa won the first leg 2-0, and our “Young Guns” look set […]

Stefaans Brummer THE all-pervasive influence of South Africa’s securocrat chiefs in the mid-1980s — through an intricate web of covert propaganda projects — has been revealed in a classified State Security Council document released by former spy Craig Williamson. The 1984 document audits “strategic communication” (stratcom) projects run by the police, the military and the […]

Hugh McLean of the Liberty Life Foundation, and treasurer of the Southern African Grantmakers’ Association writes on the funding crisis in NGOs. It was Mark Twain who said: “October. This is one of the peculiarly dangerous months to speculate stocks in. The others are July, January, September, April, November, May, March, June, December, August and […]

Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi resorted to the politics of tantrums this week when he led a walkout from parliament. But more important than criticising this return to his pre-election ways is to understand why he is doing it and President Nelson Mandela’s somewhat limited options in dealing with it. The immediate concerns that lay behind the […]

Colin Jackson THE nation’s broadcasting heritage can be summed up with the Broederbond’s cherished term, “consensus broadcasting” — which meant not challenging the regime. The old SABC left no established editorial values, because they only formally accepted that the role of the public broadcasting service was to shine the torch of truth. A critical and […]