Burning issue: More than 70 people have been killed in the Northern Transvaal owing to witchcraft since April 1994 … The malevolent tokoloshe and the snake that drinks blood. Amid flashes of lightning and under a new moon, Eddie Koch, Edwin Ritchken and Vusi Khoza, investigate a strange case of sorcery in the Eastern Transvaal […]

Weekly Mail Reporter THE Weekly Mail & Guardian hired a private investigator to “bug” the offices of former Civil Co-Operation Bureau chief Staal Burger in 1992 after receiving evidence from a number of sources about secret meetings at his Hillbrow hotel, the Johannesburg Magistrate’s Court was told this week. The intention, senior staffer Eddie Koch […]

Classical Music: Coenraad Visser IN its first two concerts this year the Transvaal Philharmonic Orchestra showcased local artists and composers, in this way setting an example hopefully followed by other orchestras in this country. After a round of competition triumphs overseas Francois du Toit returned home to give a elegant performance of Beethoven’s first piano […]

What’s in a name? Plenty if its a branded product which is bypassing the regular channels. Reg Rumney reports. AS a rule you can’t count on what’s available at flea markets — except for cheap brand-name audio cassette tapes, the essential element of the home-taping the record industry abominates. Not only at flea markets, but […]

TELEVISION: Luke Alfred EVEN on the telephone Mark Gillman is all you expect him to be. As he lolls in the bath somewhere in Cape Town, the presenter of NNTV’s Livewire is likeably egocentric, just as he is on the little blue screen. Gillman is the shape of things to come in television: cosmopolitan, manic, […]

What does your business card say about you? Reg Rumney has some suggestions. The most impressive business card I received last year was that handed to me by the venerable head of Anglo American chairman’s trust Michael O’Dowd. It states simply in black print, “M. C. O’Dowd, 44 Main Street, Johannesburg,” and gives the relevant […]

CRICKET: Luke Alfred WITH Kepler Wessels’ retirement from the international scene and Hansie Cronje’s promotion as national captain, we seem to have been liberated from our fear of failure. At provincial level the youth policies followed so diligently by Natal have brought handsome rewards, with other provinces following suit. The Plascon Academy is up and […]

Farouk Chothia in Durban THERE is a new Battle of Blood River. This time it’s over a bid by the Voortrekker Museum to upgrade the kwaZulu/Natal monument to the original 1838 battle at a cost of about R1-million. According to sources, the Voortrekker Museum wants to build a “British-style medieval fortress with battlements, towers and […]

Critical Consumer Pat Sidley SOUTH AFRICAN consumers should be getting used to the notion of debating critical issues around their health care. But one issue that needs a bit more attention is the rationing of health care. More precisely — who should live and who should die, a question facing hospitals and health maintenance organisations […]

Mark Gevisser THE deadlock over the future of ex-bantustan broadcasters — notably Bop-TV — may have been broken. Broadcasting Minister Pallo Jordan has created a ministry-led task group to investigate the issue and will promulgate an omnibus Broadcasting Bill this year that will set conditions for “provincial public media”. These two initiatives are the result […]