JOURNALISTS were barred for a second time this week from reporting on issues discussed in open parliamentary standing committees, despite the ANC’s repeated pledge to transparancy. Last week Labour Minister Tito Mboweni told journalists that his briefing to a standing committee was “off the record” and could not be reported. This week an ANC senator, […]

A drama is unfolding at Argus Newspapers, where a top business consultant has been brought in to streamline the corporation. Drew Forrest reports A TOP Australian business consultant is at the centre of a convulsion in Argus Newspapers that has already brought job cuts at the Pretoria News, the axing of the group marketing team […]

Slow bowlers selected but seamers still rule CRICKET: Jon Swift IT IS not beyond the bounds of reason to suggest to the South African cricket selectors that they should take note of the recent goings-on in the camp of their rugby counterparts. For, with the senior tour of one-dayers looming in Pakistan and the A […]

Farouk Chothia THE Food and Allied Workers’ Union has suspended its Natal leadership and frozen all regional bank accounts after the Natal executive refused to implement a controversial new constitution, said Fawu sources. The Fawu Natal region — the second largest in the union — will launch an application in the Cape Town Supreme Court […]

Critical Consumer Pat Sidley “AN equal opportunity killer needs equal opportunity management,” says consultant cardiologist Graham Jackson in an editorial in the British Medical Journal (BMJ). He was not talking about South Africa’s employment problems but about the fact that women get less — and inferior — treatment for heart disease. In a particularly damning […]

Promises but little diversity characterised the African Institute of Art’s 10th birthday celebration. Bafana Khumalo was there AFTER years of cultural drought in Soweto, the first few drops of what could become a rainy season have started to fall. One of these raindrops splashed across the Funda Art Centre in Diepkloof last Saturday at an […]

Law enforcement goes private in a recent spate of violent acts against alleged criminals, reports Wiseman Khuzwayo IN Debe Nek, just outside King William’s Town, an irate mob last month savagely killed a man awaiting trial for murder and rape. They cut off his arms, crushed his skull and tore out his brain. The mob […]

That pumping sound in the pool is from a machine which has sucked a fair amount of foreign exchange into the country. Reg Rumney reports THE swimming-pool cleaner is one uniquely South African product that has made its mark internationally. Small wonder the two main brands, Kreepy Krauly and Baracuda — as South African as […]

Former SADF soldiers are training their old enemies in Angola. To counter accusations of being mercenaries, they are expanding into civilian operations, reports Stefaans Brummer FROM the hilltop an ex-South African Defence Force soldier gave the order. On the dusty plain below a ragtag bunch of adolescent Angolan army recruits advanced, artillery rounds bursting metres […]

After severe disappointment at the Commonwealth Games, Okkert Brits has soared back to his best and is aiming even higher next year ATHLETICS: Paul Martin FROM shattering humiliation to glorious victory in the space of a fornight: it’s a Boys Own success story for the pole-vaulting African record-holder and now World Cup gold medallist Okkert […]