Robert Kirby : Loose Cannon Now that the media blood pressure is dropping and the Bill Clinton/FW de Klerk/PW Botha emotional and sexual needs have been assessed in all their horrible detail, I think it’s time for a more informed look at these scandalous goings-on in high places. The first major peril of trying to […]

John Grobler In what amounts to an inquest into an inquest, the second judicial investigation into the Anton Lubowski assassination opens on Monday in the Windhoek High Court with what appears to be very little new evidence, a lack of political will to solve the murder and a vote of no confidence from the Lubowski […]

Melvyn Minnaar Potable pleasures The nickname they have in common, promises pleasure. But whereas the white stuff offers play with a pinch of peril, the black substance carries a free-and-easy, “all-ages” prescription and a registered trademark. To the contemporary tune of Always Coca- Cola, Coke is hailed as universal libation of fun with a long […]

Clandestine flights carrying arms and supplies to Unita in Angola will be curtailed after disclosures, reports John Grobler The arrest of nine South African men when their DC-4 was forced down by an Angolan Air Force Mig-21 at Menongue, the provincial capital of Cuando Cubango, two weeks ago, appears to have spelled the end — […]

Kate Turkington INTO AFRICA: A Journey Through The Ancient Empires by Marq de Villiers and Shiela Hirtle (Jonathan Ball, R89,99) Analysing Africa is a bit like facing the many-headed Hydra. Just as you’ve got one section neatly disposed of, another rears up and puts you back where you started. Similarly, any book that attempts “to […]

Madelaine Wackernagel : Taking Stock Amazing how the pendulum swings. In the 1980s, the trend in business thinking was “the broader, the better”. This resulted in companies adding on, seemingly indisicriminately, diversifying all over the show. But then, with the help of the 1989 stock-market shake-out, came a new idea. Concentrate on core businesses; managing […]

Several million people and their families will be affected by the listings of South Africa’s two largest life insurance groups on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) within the next 18 months. For more than a year market observers have been expecting Sanlam and Old Mutual to announce their plans to demutualise and list on the […]

Wonder Hlongwa The South African Red Cross Society’s national executive committee is sitting on an explosive report detailing maladministration, corruption, negligence, racism and nepotism — apparently in an attempt to cover up for colleagues who are implicated in it by name. The report details the inability of the Red Cross’s national director general, Keith Gower, […]

Wonder Hlongwa Thandeka Shabalala (16) lies on a stretcher at King Edward VIII Hospital in Durban, with a heavy brown blanket thrown over her body despite the heat. She has travelled all the way from Pietermaritzburg. She is one of hundreds of patients who come for treatment at King Edward and instead either sleep on […]

Charl Blignaut On stage in Johannesburg Three-quarters of the way through Kere Nyawo’s gritty prison comedy Hola Majita, a young male prisoner is forced to don a frock and perform the duties of a whore. Where is all this leading, I wonder. Another quaint, stereotypical comic device pretending to be something more than a handy […]