Karen Harverson South Africa’s first national lottery — expected to generate billions-of-rands in turnover a year — should begin operating by Minister for General Services Chris Fismer will appoint consultants before the end of February to advise on the format of the lottery as well as to make changes to the National Lottery Act to […]

Labour wants a greater say in the decisions made on the mines, report Karen Harverson and Vuyo Mvoko No one is arguing with Anglo American Corporation’s call last week that cost and productivity changes are needed at Free State Consolidated Gold mines (Freegold) to avoid the threatened closure of five of its shafts and the […]

KwaZulu-Natal’s embattled monarch finds himself between a rock and a hard place as negotiations for an imbizo gather momentum, writes Ann Eveleth There are few indications that the multi-party imbizo (mass gathering of the Zulu nation) planned for KwaZulu-Natal will achieve its nominal purpose of promoting peace and reconciliation in the blood-soaked province. Strategically planned […]

Vuyo Mvoko WHILE most former homeland radio stations are preparing to wind down their businesses, Bophuthatswana Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is tying its shoelaces. It is the employment this month of top journalists Sefako Nyaka and Frances Majola to top executive positions within the corporation which raised eyebrows. They are head of TV news and of […]

Four months on, the Makgoba row at Wits continues. Philippa Garson analyses the destructive row and finds both sides wanting WHO would have thought that a dispute between academics at Wits University could become a “rolling story” with all the dramatic elements of a national scandal? The saga has galvanised one opinion piece after another […]

Obituary:Harold Wolpe Colin Bundy “Everything I have written in these lectures underlines the importance to the intellectual of passionate engagement, risk, exposure, commitment to principles, vulnerability in debating and being involved in worldly causes.” (Edward Said, Representations of the Late last year, Harold Wolpe flew from Cape Town to deliver some lectures in Sheffield. In […]

were too afraid to ask Fear and loathing and confusion surround the Absa saga. Justin Pearce gives a guide to all the main players in the drama IT’S been a sweaty fortnight for anyone who may have put their fingers into an Absa till in the past five years. The first beads of perspiration would […]

The apartheid state’s most efficient killer wants his murder trial put on hold so he can tell all to the truth commission, writes Eddie Eugene de Kock is ready to talk. The former Vlakplaas commander — dubbed “Prime Evil” by former colleagues because he is reputed to be South Africa’s most effective assassin — will […]

REASON has triumphed over fantasy in the Palestinian elections. Yasser Arafat’s landslide victory is an overwhelming endorsement of the peace process, and reflects a growing view among the Palestinians that their aspirations for an independent state are more likely to be gained by negotiation than by terrorism. The election result is also a vindication of […]