Jacquie Golding-Duffy reports on the far- ranging cuts a top US consultancy has suggested for the SABC THESABC has been advised to axe nearly 1 000 staff and to cut R200-million from the cost of its radio and support services. Two confidential reports by top United States company McKinsey Consultants detail cost-cutting measures ranging from […]

The two sides of Zaire’s civil war have agreed tentatively to talk for the first time, reports Chris McGreal ZAIRE’S rebel leader, Laurent Kabila, says direct negotiations with the government could soon be possible following his meeting with President Nelson Mandela this week. But Kabila ruled out an early ceasefire in the five-month civil war […]

Initially banned, the movie Kids finally opens in South Africa this Friday. Our critics offer their views on the film’s bold director and its young star Charl Blignaut SUNDAY night and Sandton Cinema 8 is packed. The tall, thin film-maker stands up front, having been called up to introduce his movie, apparently uneasy in front […]

Several of Zimbabwe’s top politicians – probably including Robert Mugabe – knew that former Zimbabwean president Canaan Banana was repeatedly abusing his aide-de- camp, reports Jan Raath in Harare IN 1981, Zimbabwe passed a law which made it an offence to ridicule Canaan Sodindo Banana, then the president. It ended a rash of jokes, like […]

Three French musketeers are all advocating a return to traditional Gallic flair and ‘le jeu du mouvement’ in the Five Nations battle against England RUGBY: Mick Cleary IT WAS a matchmaker’s dream: England versus France, the clash of two cultures, the collision of opposites. The English, all method, planning, order, sang-froid set against the wide-ranging, […]

ANDRE WIESNER speaks to a wannabe Presley in Graceland, Cape Town By day he’s the owner of the Sea Point Taxi Association, but by night Ernest MacDonald dons a glittering white suit and wraparound shades and takes to the stage of his newly opened rock’n’ roll restaurant, Graceland, as his coffin-dodging idol and alter ego, […]

Stefaans Brmmer THE controversial Church of Scientology has bestowed a ”freedom medal” on Lawrence Anthony, KwaZulu-Natal businessman and confidant of Mangosuthu Buthelezi, shedding new light on the close links between the church and the Inkatha Freedom Party. The Mail & Guardian reported in November 1994 that Anthony and Businesswise Management Consultants, a management consultancy then […]

JG Ballard WHAT happened to the Space Age? Its once heroic vision of our planetary future now seems little more than a mirage. Yet in 1957, I remember listening to the radio call-sign of Sputnik 1, relayed on the BBC bulletins, and the sense I had that this was the only news that mattered. As […]

The resignation of Springbok coach Andre Markgraaff is bound to affect the players, which is good news for South Africa’s opponents in the tough season ahead RUGBY:Jon Swift AS the dust rises in ever thickening clouds to turn whatever hint there was of transparency in South African rugby into an even murkier soup, it is […]

Controversy surrounds the proposed Bill to convert the Development Bank of South Africa into a company, writes Lynda Loxton NEW parliamentary finance committee chairman Sipho Mpahlwa had a baptism of fire this week when the committee once again flexed its muscles and refused to rubber stamp an important Bill. Appointed on February 17, Mpahlwa almost […]