Now in their seventh year, Not the Midnight Mass’=20 slightly sleazy edge is still razor-sharp, writes HAZEL=20 WHAT can you say about a troupe of actors-turned- singers who transformed an unemployment pit-stop and=20 after-hours slot between tits’n’bum time into an=20 institution? It’s pretty much been said before: the=20 eulogies to their Addams Family antics, their […]

Meshack Mabogoane The road to a full-scale market economy in Mozambique=20 is, like peace, “irreversible”, President Joachim=20 Chissano said in Sandton recently when he addressed a=20 special meeting of businesspeople. He said joint ventures for the development of major=20 infrastructure were the “only policy option available”=20 and “we may no longer guarantee the development of […]

The Constitutional Court is about to decide on the legality of banning porn, writes Justin Pearce Pornography will be in the dock next week when the Constitutional Court considers whether a section of the Indecent or Obscene Photographic Matter Act of 1967 should be scrapped in terms of the free speech provisions and other constitutional […]

Stefaans Brummer THE irony of their own attendance at Monday’s Southern African Development Community summit could not have been lost on Constand Viljoen and Pik Botha. A succession of regional leaders made sure they had no Both men sat attentively in the large but select World Trade Centre audience when three presidents, including Nelson Mandela, […]

CRICKET: Jon Swift THERE is something vaguely intimidating about coming=20 face to face with a living legend, even one as openly=20 receptive to the advances of lesser mortals as cricket=20 great Sir Garfield Sobers. At 59, the hair is greying and the lines demarcating=20 the edges of the mouth more deeply embedded than in his=20 […]

Gaye Davis CLAUSES in the interim Constitution governing education are impeding the African National Congress’ ability to deliver and should be expunged from the new Constitution, says Blade Nzimande, chairperson of the National Assembly Portfolio Committee on Education. The collapse of mass-based organisation was also threatening transformation, he said in an interview this week. “You […]

JAZZ: Meshack Mabogoane A MONTH after his appointment as co-director of the=20 State Theatre, the appearance of Hugh Masekela at=20 Kippie’s in downtown Johannesburg last week was a=20 fitting reminder that he is both the supreme embodiment=20 of a cultural stream that has been exiled from stately=20 consideration, and a musical establishment in his own=20 […]

Ann Eveleth UNIVERSITY of Durban-Westville officials are mystified by the bugging of a campus union official and a mysterious “investigation” of campus affairs by suspected National Intelligence Agency (NIA) agents, who apparently claimed they were sent by President Nelson Mandela. The conversation-monitoring device was discovered by private investigators in the office of Combined Staff Association […]

Molefe Matlou Students at Tladi Comprehensive High School in Soweto studied in classrooms with broken windows, doors and leaking roofs, had no toilet facilities and had to crowd together in the four decent classrooms when it rained. But, despite these conditions, the school was never placed on the Department of Education and Training’s priority list […]

Philippa Garson THE proposed closure of the central unit of Wits University’s Academic Development Programme — which offers support to educationally disadvantaged students — has met with dismay in some student and staff circles and raised questions about the direction being taken by the university on its academic development The decision to close down the […]