There is one quarter from which the ANC does want criticism: the opposition parties. But this isn’t happening, writes Marion Edmunds THE African National Congress believes that South Africa’s collective opposition is doing a terrible job. President Nelson Mandela’s director of communications, Joel Netshitenzhe, argued this week that opposition parties had reduced their focus to […]

Although Unita has little choice but to part with some of its diamond concessions, it will not do so without haggling, reports Chris Gordon UNITA, the Angolan opposition group, is optimistic that deals concerning the diamond mines it occupies will be concluded soon, according to government sources in Luanda. Angola produced diamonds valued at close […]

Glynis O’Hara PAYOLA, long the battle of the music industry, reared its ugly head this week when Mike Edwards, former managing director of EMI South Africa, was quoted in the press as saying his company had actively participated in the system of paying for airplay. It’s long been said that it is rife, especially on […]

The issue of homosexuality tests the commitment of African states to a culture of human rights, argues Shaun de Waal HOMOSEXUALITY as a social issue – and gay and lesbian rights as a political issue – has recently arisen several times in the region, raising controversy in Zimbabwe, Namibia, Botswana and Swaziland. It seems to […]

FRIDAY, 8.30AM DEPUTY PRESIDENT Thabo Mbeki has asked both finance minister Trevor Manuel and Reserve Bank governor Chris Stals to send a task team to Kinshasa to help with economic recovery. Stals said yesterday that the Bank could help with the managing of bank regulations, and foreign and gold reserves. The team has not yet […]

Angella Johnson SIPHO MASEKO, senior lecturer in political science at the University of the Western Cape, was not quite as kind to the opposition parties as they were to themselves – he consistently gave them lower scores for their performance than the scores the parties thought they deserved. But he and the Democratic Party were […]

FRIDAY, 3.00PM INDEPENDENT Broadcasting Authority co-chairman Peter de Klerk, who resigned last week in a financial scandal, misled Parliament’s public accounts committee over double claims for expenses on an overseas trip, and may be liable for prosecution for fraud. The auditor general’s report on financial irregularities in the IBA said that on a United States […]

THURSDAY, 4.00PM THE Director General of Housing, Billy Cobbett, has been fired after asking the auditor general to investigate the R185-million Mpumalanga Housing Project, the largest yet under the government’s housing subsidy scheme. In a hastily called press conference on Thursday afternoon, Housing Minister Sankie Mthembi-Mahanyele denied Cobbett had been fired, saying he had asked […]

IT is now three weeks since the Mail & Guardian disclosed the horrific details of the report compiled by Zimbabwe’s Truth and Justice Commission on the atrocities in Matabeleland. The only response has come from Robert Mugabe, who denounced those responsible for the report as “mischief- makers” and declared: “If we dig up history then […]

Fiona Macleod I SPEAK OF AFRICA: THE STORY OF LONDOLOZI GAME RESERVE by Shan Varty and Molly Buchanan (Londolozi Publishers, R300) THE ENVIRONMENTAL FUNDING GUIDE by Jill Ritchie (Papillon Press, R100) WHY would anyone want to pay R300 for the eulogy to the Varty dynasty in I Speak of Africa? Firstly, because the Vartys have […]