Jacquie Golding-Duffy DEPUTY President Thabo Mbeki’s Task Group on Government Communications (Comtask) this week tabled a hard-hitting report challenging government to revamp its internal communications departments, making them more flexible and less bureaucratic. It also recommends that the government funds the SABC and Channel Africa, the external service which carries news from across Africa in […]

A London office, standing empty for two years, is hardly a luxury the SABC can afford, writes Marion Edmunds THE South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) is paying 216 000 annually – more than R1,7-million at the current exchange rate – for its broadcasting office in London, half of which has been standing empty for about […]

Rehana Rossouw DEPUTY Environment Affairs and Tourism Minister Peter Mokaba’s bid for the leadership of the African National Congress in the Northern Province will be discussed by a high-level ANC National Executive Committee delegation (NEC) to the province this weekend. This week Mokaba confirmed that he was available for the position of ANC Northern Province […]

Jacquie Golding-Duffy THE impression created of South Africa in foreign countries is not as flattering as it should be because missions based abroad are being “seriously hampered” in their attempts to promote the country, said a Task Group on Government Communications (Comtask) report handed this week to Deputy President Thabo Mbeki. South Africa needs to […]

ROGER TREDRE discusses an explosive new biography of Yves Saint Laurent YVES SAINT LAURENT, acknowledged as the greatest fashion designer of the century, was almost destroyed by the pressures of his job, according to a biography just published. Design writer and journalist Alice Rawsthorn outlines Saint Laurent’s life as a round of drug and alcohol […]

This week’s British Budget is one of the most cautious in electioneering history as the Tories bank on strong economic growth to keep them in power, writes Alex Brummer THE central assertion of Kenneth Clarke’s Budget strategy – that his tight fiscal stand removes the need for higher interest rates – does not stand up […]

Ann Eveleth A SNAP Mail & Guardian survey of 40 Durban households this week turned up a 10% household error in last month’s national census, and revealed wide schisms between black and white views on the project. White Durban residents polled were only half as likely as blacks to say they understood the reason for […]

South African companies are tightening security measures as the incidence of white- collar crime increases, reports Madeleine Wackernagel SOUTH AFRICAN businesses have the highest expectation of fraud in the world, according to a new survey by the international consultancy, KPMG. In the second survey of its kind to be conducted in this country, KPMG found […]

THEATRE:Adam Haupt STELLENBOSCH’S HB Thom Theatre seems like the very last place you would expect to find the Russian Consulate’s Sasha Mukhin. In fact, he was the guest of honour at the opening night of Anton Chekhov’s Die Seemeeu (The Seagull) and took on a performance of his own by addressing his audience in Russian. […]

More international music stars are heading our way. Our reporters preview the Def Leppard and Tevin Campbell tours MUSIC: Hazel Friedman and David Goldberg. THE trouble with interviewing rock stars who have lived the success-excess myth in extremis is that you tend to want to accompany them all the way down the same drain, time […]