FORMER security policeman Paul Erasmus has given the=20 first explanation of what happened to Mamelodi activist=20 Stanza Bopape, who disappeared without trace in 1987. Erasmus never dealt with Bopape, but he was told by two=20 of his colleagues that Bopape was beaten to death=20 during interrrogation on the 10th floor of John Vorster=20 Square in […]

Writing stories on the sex lives of presidents has become a dangerous occupation for Southern African journalists, writes David Lush Just last month, the publisher and two editors of Zimbabwe’s Financial Gazette were arrested, interrogated and charged with an offence which has hardly seen the light of day since the fall of Ian Smith’s Rhodesia […]

Most South Africans have sickened under one of the=20 world’s most skewed and inefficient health care=20 systems. It’s been in desperate need of major surgery,=20 and Health Minister Nkosazana Zuma is to be commended=20 for bringing an extensive, carefully constructed set of=20 proposals to the discussion table a little more than a=20 year after coming […]

Stefaans Brummer A SHADOWY company that was a nerve centre for security=20 police dirty tricks planning in the Witwatersrand since=20 late 1990 still exists as a police front. The company, which operated under the cover names=20 Lamont Market Research and LM Research, shed its more=20 notorious “Stratcom” component in late 1991 or early=20 1992, but […]

M-Net should not hide its real results behind its=20 restructuring, argues Jacques Magliolo ELECTRONIC Media Networks (M-Net) produced poor results=20 for the third year running, and directors are hiding=20 behind the incomparability of financial statements.=20 The company’s preliminary report states: “Results for=20 the year ended March 31 1994 include businesses now=20 housed in MultiChoice and […]

Ann Eveleth The KwaZulu/Natal government has been accused of=20 dragging its heels over the implementation of an=20 intensive land reform programme worth more than R79- million, while tens of thousands of dispossessed rural=20 residents wait helplessly for the assistance promised=20 them by central government last year. The charges come amid the province’s calls for greater=20 […]

RUGBY: Barney Spender HE IS 24 years old, shaves his head twice a week,=20 dreams of being Pamela Anderson and has only played in=20 four tests but already All Black flanker Josh Kronfeld=20 is getting the kind of notices which would make the=20 best of Broadway producers look up in envy. This weekend, as the […]

Leticia Muller is leaving Pact to join the Birmingham=20 Royal Ballet. Stanley Peskin mourns the loss of a rare=20 WHEN David Bintley came to Johannesburg to stage “Still=20 Life” at the Penguin Cafe for Pact Ballet in 1994,=20 there was considerable delight among ballet-lovers. The=20 choreographer of this poignant work had chosen to=20 oversee the […]

Movable Feast ON a cold, wet and windy winter’s night, we drove along=20 a lane next to Cape Town’s Liesbeeck River and ran=20 through the rain into the shelter of the Wild Fig. We=20 closed the door to the elements and found ourselves=20 warmly welcomed (or was it congratulated?) for having=20 braved the night to […]

1983: Anton Harber, junior reporter at the Rand Daily=20 Mail, receives a tip off that two strange people are=20 paying a black man to distribute anti-United Democratic=20 Front pamphlets outside Park Station in Johannesburg.=20 He is told to expect another rendezvous at 5pm that=20 Harber goes to the meeting place with a photographer.=20 The men […]