reshuffle Gaye Davis GOVERNMENT plans to radically revise the Reconstruction and Development Programme could face a backlash — not so much against what has been decided, but because of the lack of consultation which preceded it. Deputy President Thabo Mbeki is to appoint a task force to oversee the re-allocation of the RDP’s projects, programmes […]

Opinions about the appropriateness of the sentences passed on the AWB bombers run the gamut of the political spectrum, writes Stefaans Brummer XOLISWA Falati stood at the bottom of the steps outside the Rand Supreme Court on Wednesday, holding aloft a poster denouncing the death penalty. She need hardly have bothered — that form of […]

A few white farmers in North West province want a big chunk of the land compensation budget — for farms which were dirt-cheap in the first place, reports Hazel Friedman FIFTEEN white farmers in North West province are threatening to hijack the government’s land reform programme unless they are awarded millions of rands in compensation […]

The conference on the Constitution has been a ‘win-win’ situation for all involved, says Cyril Ramaphosa. Marion Edmunds reports Enough progress has been made at the constitutional bosberaad in Arniston for technical advisers to start drawing up the final draft of the constitution, in anticipation of meeting the May 8 deadline. Both African National Congress […]

Julian Drew AT the 97th session of the International Olympic Committee in Birmingham in 1991 where the venue for the 1998 Winter Olympic Games was decided, a dinner was hosted by the president of the British Olympic Association, Princess Anne, on the lawns of Warwick Castle. To her left sat the president of the Association […]

Young and restless — or just dazed and confused? HAZEL FRIEDMAN reports on an exhibition by a group of Johannesburg conceptual artists IT was one of those rare, ironic intersections between art and life which reveal the gulf between them. At the opening of The Young and the Restless Without Permission, at the Sandton Art […]

Ann Eveleth Inkatha Freedom Party Izingolweni chairman Sipho Ngcobo is under investigation in connection with allegations that a firearm he allegedly reported stolen in June last year was linked to two prior murder cases. The Mail & Guardian has established Ngcobo is the man referred to by the special investigation team probing a spate of […]

Trevor Manuel, new minister of finance, in The Mark Gevisser Profile ASK any Western Cape activist the secret of Trevor Manuel’s success and you’ll be told, ”Hy’t gejob innie area.” He’s a homeboy; he worked his own ‘hood. In the worlds of Davos and Brussels, he might be the smoothest South African product to have […]

Rehana Rossouw The attorney general of the Cape of Good Hope is considering taking action against a former American dentist, now resident in South Africa, for tax evasion, it emerged in the Cape Supreme Court this week. Dr Robert Hall, who is suing The Argus and the monthly investigative news magazine noseWEEK for a total […]

JAZZ: Gwen Ansell TRUMPETING, roaring and pawing the ground, the trombone is the elephant of the jazz band. In the right hands — and Jonas Gwangwa’s, at the Johannesburg Civic Theatre, are certainly those — it’s also capable of breathtaking delicacy and precision. Instrumental virtuosity is one of the main delights of Gwangwa’s show, which […]