Cameron Duodu: FIRST PERSON Just before President Bill Clinton set off on his March/April tour of Africa that brought him to South Africa, Ghanaian writer Cameron Duodu sent Clinton an open letter, urging Clinton to avail himself of the opportunity offered by the tour to put the Monica Lewinsky affair in its correct perspective. Duodu […]

`justice’ When hit squads roamed KwaZulu-Natal during the early 1990s, the province’s Attorney General, Tim McNally, developed a reputation for being reluctant to prosecute alleged Inkatha Freedom Party assassins and their police accomplices. McNally’s seemingly ambiguous attitude to prosecution was once again in the public spotlight last week when the attorney general released a press […]

y So Craig Williamson wishes he was James Bond and a generation of aspirant psychos model themselves on Hannibal Lecter. Maggie Davey listened to American theorist Mark Seltzer on the concept of a `wound culture’ Did Craig Williamson really have to reassure us that spying for the apartheid government was no James Bond fantasy? You […]

Peter Dickson More than R300-million in taxpayers’ money is owed in unauthorised, outstanding loans to senior civil servants in the Eastern Cape. This disclosure comes a week after provincial speaker Gugile Nkwinti suspended two officials who had cashed in more than R300 000 in air tickets for members of the legislature without authorisation. The legislature’s […]

Evidence wa ka Ngobeni Student political organisations at Technikon Witwatersrand have collapsed because they have failed to find roles in the new South Africa. “The leadership here has been weakening because students are not united in dealing with issues which affect them,” said student affairs official Andy Dass. “Student political organisations before the 1994 elections […]

A new computer system will allow the revenue service to harvest more taxes, writes Belinda Beresford The tax collector is quietly setting traps to catch those modest South Africans too shy to reveal their full income. The phone call interrupting supper could be a polite revenue service reminder that your tax return is overdue, or […]

Cynthia Schoeman Are leaders born or made? What made Mahatma Ghandi a person of adulation to millions, able to lead thousands in protest actions? The debate still rages. But whether leadership is inborn or developed, certainly there are too few natural leaders to meet the demands of companies in today’s fast changing world. Therefore, organisations […]

Khareen Pech A right-wing millionaire linked to weapons cartels and rebel armies in Africa is at the forefront of a bizarre plot to destabilise South Africa before the 1999 general elections. Former Civilian Co- operation Bureau (CCB) operative Johan Niemoeller is planning a fervent campaign he calls the “Fourth Boere Revolution” to “reimpose white Afrikaner […]

Mike Finch Commonwealth Games South Africa’s track and field athletes returned home from the Commonwealth Games on Tuesday clutching 11 medals – their biggest haul at a major event since returning to the international scene in 1993. Unfortunately, only one of the medallists was black. Olympic 800m runner Hezekiel Sepeng, almost a veteran member of […]

Donna Block: Share World Until very recently Greece was considered Europe’s basket case economy, with huge public debt, an antiquated labour market, an enormous bureaucracy and a state sector reminiscent of the old Soviet bloc in its inefficiency and corruption. But signs are that the poorest country in the European Union is getting its act […]