South Africa needs a new healthy policy, writes researcher Alex van den Heever. But is the proposed National Health Insurance appropriate? THE possible introduction of some form of National Health Insurance (NHI) in South Africa would involve a major shift in emphasis from the way in which health service is presently structured. It is worth […]

Peter Mokaba has denied the accusations levelled against him and has blamed the director of the NTF for the financial crisis, writes Mduduzi ka Harvey AS the National Tourism Forum (NTF) chaired by former ANC youth leader Peter Mokaba heads deeper into financial crisis, divisions have been drawn in the upper echelons, with two factions […]

What’s in a name? Plenty if its a branded product which is bypassing the regular channels. Reg Rumney reports. AS a rule you can’t count on what’s available at flea markets — except for cheap brand-name audio cassette tapes, the essential element of the home-taping the record industry abominates. Not only at flea markets, but […]

CRICKET: Jon Swift THE enduring memory of this summer’s cricket will be an incident on the boundary ropes rather than any of the truly exciting things which happened out in the middle. It was the sight of Fanie de Villiers in the middle of the Kingsmead Test following the umpires and their lightmeters off the […]

By Reg Rumney I have been ripped off – not once, but many times. And to my shame I didn’t even know it at the time. I am one of the many people tempted by the cheapness of the TDK tapes on offer from roadside hawkers. It is a brand known for its quality worldwide. […]

Stefaans Brummer FORMER superspy Craig William-son — the one former agent that knows more than most about the ”dirty tricks” of his apartheid bosses — this week was at loggerheads with Mineral and Energy Affairs Minister Pik Botha and other National Party politicians over their handling of the police indemnities saga. Williams warned NP politicians […]

Eddie Koch RITUAL murder and witchcraft cases are on the increase in rural and urban townships of the Transvaal. In the latest incident, a local radio station reports that a young woman was abducted by a gang of ”cannibals”, kept as a sex-slave in an underground cavern near Katlehong and forced to eat the body […]

Analysts set to work assessing whether this week’s 400- point drop heralds the beginning of a major slide, reports Jacques Magliolo Industrial bears were out in force this week at the Johannesburg Stock Exchange after the market fell by 400 points in two days. Screams of ”Sell” reverberated around the corridors of that esteemed establishment, […]

Jan Taljaard in Petoria ‘AND this,” shrilled the corporal, the fierce pitch of her voice asserting itself as part of an armoury of authority, ”… this is the breech block! What do we call it?” ”The breech block …” 30-odd voices mumbled in hesitant reply. ”I shout at you, therefore you shout at me! What […]

Can President Nelson Mandela’s visit to India free South Africa’s international personality from the stranglehold of the past? asks Peter Vale UNTIL now, the foreign policy of the new South Africa has reflected, more than anything else, apartheid’s authoritarianism. How else is one to understand the behaviour of the Department of Foreign Affairs which tried […]