Debate rages about the role the media should take in reporting the truth commission, writes Claudia Braude * the run-up to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission conducting hearings on the role played by the media during the apartheid years, the debate surrounding the press playing a reconciliatory role raged among journalists at a workshop held […]

Gustav Thiel AS the new academic year started this week at the University of Stellenbosch, two young black men arrived from the sugarfields of KwaZulu-Natal ready to be trained as wine-makers. Mzokhona Mwemwe (21) and Dumisani Zulu (20), both from Umlazi, were accepted into the university’s diploma course in wine-making, but have been unable to […]

Rehana Rossouw A STELLENBOSCH family facing eviction from the labourers’ cottage they occupied for 50 years won a costly three-month reprieve last weekend when Land Affairs Minister Derek Hanekom stepped in to help them. Hanekom – who is attempting to limit the evictions of rural farmers through new legislation – managed to persuade the farm […]

This week’s guest writer, Hein Marais, paid a visit to a private deportation centre near Johannesburg A COUPLE of kilometres outside Krugersdorp lives a town of ghosts. The winches that once hoisted gold ore to the surface of Randfontein rust in fields of long grass. Lining the main street are grimy, melancholic buildings. It’s hot, […]

Richard Brooks THE sister of pianist David Helfgott has mounted an extraordinary attack on= Sh ine, the critically acclaimed film which tells his life story. Margaret Hel= fgo tt, who lives in Israel, has sent a British newspaper a detailed account to= de monstrate that the portrayal of the relationship between her late father Pe= […]

Stuart Hess ‘HOW am I supposed to feed my children if the taps don’t work?” asked a young mother of two in Eldorado Park. “If there’s no water, how do I wash myself?” inquired a boy, adding that he had not bathed for two days. These were reactions by residents of Westbury, Riverlea and Eldorado […]

Charl Blignaut THE Minister of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology, Lionel Mtshali, this= we ek finally announced the list of who will be serving on the most powerful a= rts body yet established in post-apartheid South Africa, the National Arts Cou= nci l (NAC). But, while general reaction to the list has been favourable, there= […]

Oliver McCall says God will be in his corner when he fights Lennox Lewis fo= r t he title. He may need him, says Kevin Mitchell HAVING been dropped on his head as a baby, Oliver McCall seems to have been= in a state of almost permanent, thumb-sucking belligerence ever since. This i= s a […]

Jim Day DOCTOR Eva Ngwenya-Seobi points to the tiny male genitals, the little feet and the thumb inserted contentedly in the mouth of the 12-week-old human foetus she keeps in a jar of formaldehyde. It is obvious, she says, that this thumb-sized boy floating in his amniotic sac was a living, kicking person before he […]

Rehana Rossouw and Ann Eveleth AN obscure law dating back 169 years could cripple the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s (TRC) amnesty process, Cape Attorney General Frank Khan said this week, announcing that he will challenge a landmark ruling based on the law which was made this week in the Cape High Court. In what could […]