The line between affirmative action and racism is a narrow one, which has arguably been crossed by the Road Accident Fund’s new policy to promote black professionals. As we show in this newspaper, the rule is quite simple: no whites can be used in the legal defence of the fund, unless formal permission is obtained. […]
Marianne Merten The legal battle over video recordings of the 1996 murder of Hard Living gang boss Rashaad Staggie moves to London courts next week where Reuters and Associated Press (AP) are opposing renewed attempts to obtain original footage. The Cape High Court on Thursday ruled as inadmissible several videotapes that police had seized on […]
Barry Streek Minister of Safety and Security Steve Tshwete received a light tap on the wrist this week from President Thabo Mbeki for naming three African National Congress stalwarts allegedly plotting to oust him from the presidency. The most Mbeki would say about Tshwete’s statement, given in a reply to a question in a TV […]
Hugo Young describes his interview with President Thabo Mbeki Unlike Nelson Mandela, his successor Thabo Mbeki does not in all respects rise above history. Temporally, the apartheid era may have passed, but it remains the formative imprint on the South African psyche and the president never forgets it. A conversation with him reveals the extent […]
Poet John Mateer left South Africa at 18, but is visiting the land of his birth for the Poetry Africa Festival. He spoke to Stephen Gray John Mateer’s new collection of poems, Barefoot Speech including many about his native South Africa was launched this week at the popular Poetry Africa 2001 festival in Durban. Born […]
Andy Capostagno rugby If Saturday’s final between the Brumbies and the Sharks was the last Super 12 game then we had better cherish it. Next year, not only are there likely to be more than 12 teams in the competition, but it will probably take place midway through or at the end of the season. […]
David Macfarlane Former Rhodes University academic Dr Robert Shell has lost his appeal against his summary dismissal in February on a disciplinary charge. Academics are aghast at how Shell has been treated during the two-year saga, and suggest the fallout from the conflict enshrouds not only Shell and Rhodes, but every academic in the country. […]
SOUTH Africa’s longest surviving HIV-positive born child, Nkosi Johnson, has died in his Melville, Johannesburg home. His foster mother, Gail Johnson was at his bedside when he died on Friday morning. Johnson will be remembered as the Aids activist who challenged the government’s Aids policies and united millions of South Africans in the fight against […]
Bruce Whitfield Investec’s chief investment strategist Piet Viljoen makes some astounding observations with regard to world markets. Did you know, for example, that Zimbabwe’s stock market was the world’s top performing market between March last year and March this year? Not only that, but investors in carefully chosen South African shares would have outperformed many […]
It was a tumultuous end to a mad, bad season for Bolton’s Scotland captain Ian Whittell He is 35, six months past a footballer’s pensionable age. Yet while most of his peers were dusting down the policies, sizing up a place either behind or at the bar or wearing a groove in the TV analysts’ […]