unwillingly Peta Thornycroft Wynand du Toit, a former South African commando, was deported from Angola last month exactly 10 years after he had been freed from a Luanda jail. In 1985 Du Toit became Angolas most celebrated prisoner after he was captured in an attempt to blow up Angolas oil fields in the Cabinda enclave. […]

Charl Blignaut As last years Gay and Lesbian Pride Parade wound its way through Johannesburgs grimy inner city, a rumour began to circulate amongst the marchers. The organisers, it was said, were planning to move the 1997 event north to upper-class Sandton or Rosebank away from its roots and even further from Soweto. To more […]

FRIDAY, 2.30PM NATIONAL policy guidelines for dealing with the victims of sexual offences were launched at the Protea Magistrate’s Court in Soweto on Friday. The guidelines were compiled by the departments of Justice, Safety and Security, Health, Welfare, and Correctional Services, Deputy Justice Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang said in a statement. “For the first time, state […]

Madeleine Wackernagel British Airports Authority (BAA), the worlds largest private airport manager, is joining the bidding process for a strategic equity stake in the Airport Company of South Africa (Acsa). BAA, itself a successful privatisation story, hopes to add significant value to the commendable efforts of Acsas management and staff, according to Richard Jeffrey, director […]

Andy Duffy North West province Premier Popo Molefe wants his education MEC to explain to the public why she engaged her sister-in-laws legal services instead of using state attorneys at no cost. An investigation Molefe ordered last year into education in the province uncovered severe management failings, with evidence that MEC Mamoekoena Gaoretelelwe was often […]

Wonder Hlongwa African National Congress national chairman Jacob Zuma has been involved in intense lobbying to get Zulu King Goodwill Zwelithini and Inkatha Freedom Party president Mangosuthu Buthelezi to patch up their family quarrel and appear on the same platform at the symbolically important Shaka Day celebrations. Zuma said he had been acting as a […]

Madeleine Wackernagel : Taking Stock The international financial magazine Euromoney this week voted Trevor Manuel best African finance minister, citing Gear as an example of Manuels innovative style and his ability to push his plans through government. But as the delegates at last weeks Cosatu congress made only too clear, not everybody is as enamoured […]

Robert Kirby: Loose cannon I spent a most enlightening two hours last week phoning up a few of the leading restaurants in the charismatic Boland. I was phoning around because some generous friends from up north had invited my wife and I out to have dinner in one of the areas famous gastronomic establishments, particularly […]

The witness protection programme offers protection to individuals, but not their families, writes Mungo Soggot Key witnesses to the killings which have ravaged the KwaZulu-Natal Midlands town of Richmond have refused to join the witness protection programme. The witnesses are either anxious to protect their families for whom the scheme does not cater or are […]

Globalisation has all the appeal of an express train with no driver in the cab, argues Larry Elliot In many ways, DH Lawrence was the prototype green. The constant theme of his novels was the way in which the hard, mechanistic world of the industrial West was sucking the life out of mankind. This scene […]