Police claim that a commander tried to get serious charges dropped against relatives, reports Angella Johnson Fresh evidence of police involvement in top crime syndicates emerged this week with allegations that Charlie Landman, suspended acting commander of the Brixton Murder and Robbery Unit, has close links with two brothers said to be among South Africa’s […]

Anthoni van Nieuwkerk In 1996, South Africa’s international relations went on a roller-coaster ride. The country’s multi-lateral approach to global affairs produced a number of successes, the high point of which was probably in April, when South Africa hosted the ninth meeting of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development. Also significant is the […]

* Jackie McLean / Junko Onishi: Hat Trick (Blue Note) Forget pretty young sax players sporting an earring or two. At 64 Jackie McLean is still playing with that same mixture of love, pain and fuck-you defiance which characterised his performances in the early Sixties. Three decades on, he has many more life songs to […]

An exhibition of mostly linocut prints celebrating the new Bill of Rights opened in Durban last week. SUZY BELL reports After trampling over every single clause of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights during the apartheid era, it’s fitting that South Africans can finally express their newly found freedom in art, by celebrating the […]

As the fight for the commercial TV licence heats ‘up, bidders are closing their doors to the press. ‘Gillian Farquhar and Jacquie Golding-Duffy report Bids have already begun for the commercial television licence to be awarded by the Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA), but most contenders are shrouding their plans in secrecy as the race heats […]

A unique project has ‘saved a little girl from a lifetime in hospital, reports Marion Edmunds The evil has for once been taken out of Ondine’s Curse, thanks to a determined mother and the Red Cross Children’s Hospital in Cape Town. They have saved a ‘cursed’ toddler from life in a hospital ward. On Wednesday, […]

Archbischop Desmond Tutu, as chairman of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, is recently reported to have issued a decree to commission members to act impartially. Among the commissioners who are reported to have been cautioned are Denzil Potgieter and Khoza Menojo. Ironically neither of these commissioners were nominated by interested parties according to nomination procedures […]

Following revelations of irregularities at a Cape medical ‘aid company, the Department of Health plans to fight corruption in the industry, writes Marion Edmunds The Department of Health is planning a crackdown on corruption in the billion-rand medical insurance industry, introducing strict new laws and policing as a priority next year. Sources say last week’s […]

Stuart Hess The new head of the Department of Health’s HIV/Aids/sexually-transmitted diseases (STD) directorate has vowed to kickstart the organisation’s stumbling campaign, pursuing a strategy based on greater co-operation within the government. Rosemary Smart, a 48-year old former nurse, was appointed to the post on December 12 ‘ some six months after her predecessor Quarraisha […]

STEPHEN GRAYoffers his own view of the late Sir Laurens van der Post ‘And so there then I stood on the night of 21 August 1945, in the street in Bandoeng where my book The Night of the New Moon ended …’ ‘As I stood there watching my men …’ Because I had skipped the […]