Marion Edmunds PARLIAMENT sidestepped human rights organisations and the public last week when it quietly approved the renewal of the controversial Correctional Services Amendment Act without providing for comment on its clauses. The Act, introduced by then African National Congress MP Carl Niehaus in a private member’s Bill last year, was intended as a stopgap […]

Glynis O’Hara on Tsepo Tshola, Best Male Vocalist nominee HIS music may have captured the imagination enough for his legions of fans to dub him the Village Pope, but gravelly singer/composer Tsepo Tshola has never yet been nominated for or won a music award. And, surprisingly, neither did his former group, Sankomota, win anything. Which […]

Despite being scorned as a member of the regime by the Zairean rebels, Etienne Tshisekedi has strong support from the people, reports Chris McGreal AS Zaire’s rebels brace for their assault on Kinshasa and final victory, they must also resolve whether to draw Mobutu Sese Seko’s long-standing political rivals into the revolution or shove them […]

Mungo Soggot WHILE the Independent Broadcasting Authority reeled from financial scandal this week, two of its councillors were tasting the joys of New York and Geneva. Co-chair Sebilitso Mokone-Matabane was attending a conference in New York, while councillor Lyndall Shope-Mafole was representing South Africa at the International Telecommunications Union in Geneva. Both councillors were accused […]

Marion Edmunds REFUGEE monitors and a few senior Home Affairs officials are lobbying for another amnesty for illegal immigrants – possibly for Mozambicans only – after last year’s asylum offer reached fewer people than had been hoped. Only 200 000 illegal immigrants and refugees from Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries applied for amnesty, and […]

The hospital in which patients died in the care of one of Zuma’s Cuban doctors is to be sued by Hendrina Fember, daughter of one of the victims, reports Mungo Soggot THE daughter of a patient who died in the care of the Pietersburg Hospital’s controversial Cuban anaesthetist is enraged at the cover-up of an […]

Mungo Soggot MINISTER of Justice, Dullah Omar, is considering a change in the Constitution to rein in hefty legal aid pay-outs and shield the state from a deluge of unaffordable claims. Omar floated the possibility in a letter this week to the parliamentary justice committee, which is investigating the struggling Legal Aid Board. The board […]

Hazel Friedman SOUTH AFRICAN art and culture can look forward to some of the whopping R68-million extra that has been allocated to art, culture, science and technology in the 1997/98 budget. But very little will reach arts and culture. This is due to an increase in the size of the administration budget and the growing […]

`decent death’ What do you do when a patient asks for `help at the end’? Bert Keizer gives his response THERE has always been a mad fringe around the euthanasia debate, which could make you forget that behind all the nonsense there must be the possibility of a sensible conversation about the subject. About a […]

Sanco is struggling to survive amid tensions between its socialist stalwarts and newborn capitalists,reports Mungo Soggot ONE of the bulwarks of the anti-apartheid struggle, the South African National Civics Organisation (Sanco), has virtually ground to a halt, crippled by debts of R1,5- million. A report read by former Sanco secretary general Penrose Ntlonti at the […]