Ferial Haffajee The wife of the SABC editor who commissioned the soapie Avenues stars in the programme and had a leading role in its casting and scripting. Penny Rodel also rents office space from A&P Productions, which makes the weekly soap. She used the name Penny Smith for this programme alone. Pieter de Vos, the […]

Justin Arenstein The Mpumalanga government has ordered a new investigation into the Motheo housing scandal after it expressed concern at the lack of financial controls in the national Department of Housing. Mpumalanga public accounts chair Hein Mentz said this week Parliament has been requested to address a perceived absence of checks and balances. Confirming that […]

Angella Johnson VIEW FROM A BROAD They call themselves Tupac – after the murdered American gangsta rap singer Tupak Shakur – and are the latest gang to terrorise Soweto’s womenfolk, whom they abduct and rape with apparent impunity. “Some of them are HIV-positive and they do these things in order to deliberately pass on the […]

Robert McBride has been nominated to stand in next year’s elections, reports Wally Mbhele Detained foreign affairs official Robert McBride has emerged as one of the frontrunners in the race for African National Congress parliamentary seats in next year’s general election. For a candidate to qualify for election, the nominee must win the support of […]

at bay Ferial Haffajee It is a peaceful Saturday afternoon at a women’s shelter in the inner city in Johannesburg. Two women sit in the lounge and chat to a friend who is ironing. There is a calm about the place – it is here that battered women find refuge from abusive relationships and forge […]

Chris Gordon Unita is continuing to recapture small areas in the Angolan countryside on a daily basis, sowing terror to reach their objectives. Diplomats in Luanda believe Unita leader Jonas Savimbi now wants the Lusaka protocols renegotiated, with a better deal for Unita. Savimbi described the protocols as being the destruction of Unita. They should […]

Howard Barrell The South African Communist Party leadership has called for a special meeting next week with Deputy President Thabo Mbeki and other top African National Congress officials to try to resolve the crisis in relations between the two organisations. The SACP wants the talks to take place before an ANC national executive committee meeting […]

Lesley Cowling When I spotted the neat little Honda Ballade, all sparkling in mint white, parked alongside Jan Smuts Avenue at the plush premises of Car Gallery, I didn’t think of all those snide jokes about used-car salesmen. The car was exactly like the much- loved Honda stolen from me two months before, so I […]

Howard W French Rebel forces in the Democractic Republic of Congo consolidated their hold on Wednesday on much of the eastern regions of the country, and the names of civilian leaders who might replace the embattled President Laurent-Dsir Kabila if the uprising succeeds began to circulate for the first time. In the clearest indication so […]