Zimbabwe’s last ‘independent’ newspaper has bowed to pressure to tone down its critical stance. Former Financial Gazette assistant editor and columnist. Iden Wetherell mourns the demise of his country’s free press. DID you jump or were you pushed? The question from colleagues was understandable, given the mounting list of casualties in the Modus House massacre […]
Marion Edmunds ‘This is a walk-out menu,” said Senator Mohamed Bhabha, “I come into the dining room, I look at the menu, and I walk out.” But Bhabha stayed put in the parliamentary dining room this week when he hosted the Mail & Guardian’s food critic, Robert Mulders, manager of Cape Town’s popular Rozenhof restuarant, […]
effect’ Madeleine Wackernagel reports on an unusual proposal to kick-start the RDP Two years after South Africa’s first democratic elections there is a sense of economic inertia. Part of the transition problem has been building a new government on old structures; conservatism is deeply entrenched, in business as well as government. Policy-makers are loath to […]
Beers’ hands Karen Harverson An upbeat De Beers — which this week announced a 14% increase in its attributable earnings to R2,25-billion for 1995 — is confident that 1996 will see its control of the rough diamond market strengthen. That control was threatened when Russia began leaking stones into the market in 1993, in violation […]
THE fat file from the archives in Military Intelligence on the 22nd floor of the Liberty Life building in Central Pretoria was the key which opened the door for the team from the Investigative Task Unit. The file was handed over by the then head of counter intelligence General Niewoudt and Brigadier Van Deventer to […]
Ricardo Dunn Accusations of abuse and intimidation of labourers on smallholdings in the Vanderbijlpark area are not uncommon. The local district surgeon says he treats up to 40 cases of abuse every month. Cheryl Felix, Vaal River chair of local government, says she has worked with numerous cases of physical and sexual abuse in the […]
THE most important documents in the collection, presented to back the allegation that the accused were involved in a conspiracy to commit murder, are: Minutes of a meeting on November 25 1985 between Buthelezi and General Tienie Groenewald, then Chief of Military Intelligence. Buthelezi is recorded as saying he needs a paramilitary force to protect […]
better Phillipa Garson ‘We are going to start with writing now; ons sal met potlode skryf” instructs teacher Diane Matthews to her “dual-medium” standard one class of about 50 pupils, two-thirds of whom are black. At Laerskool Venterspos, where Matthews has been teaching for 13 years, an unobtrusive revolution has taken place in the depressed […]
Ann Eveleth AS proceedings got underway in the Malan trial Judge Jan Hugo’s eyes crinkled and his grey bearded face lit up with a jovial smile as he broke the ice to share a joke with Attorney General Tim McNally. Agreeing to postpone the trial to give the seven defence teams more time to consult […]
SWIMMING: Julian Drew JUST after 10 o’clock on Wednesday morning in Durban the rain was sheeting down outside the King’s Park swimming pool. It had been raining hard all morning and the start of the day’s proceedings at the South African national aquatics championships was delayed by half an hour to allow competitors and officials […]