Marion Edmunds The South African navy’s affirmative action drive is faltering, partly because black recruits resist going to sea, reject naval traditions and would prefer desk jobs in Gauteng to be close to their families. In a report to the parliamentary integration oversight committee, which monitors the transformation of the South African National Defence Force […]

Madeleine Wackernagel : TAKING STOCK The state telecommunications monopoly could be forgiven for feeling victimised: in the space of only one week it is rapped over the knuckles for not following the correct procedures on a tariff hike and loses its bid to have sole control over the Internet. Never the most popular parastatal – […]

THURSDAY, 8.30AM PAN Africanist Congress MP Patricia De Lille made an astonishing intervention in a debate on ‘spies’ by naming seven leading ANC figures as “spies”. She claimed that they were on a list of 12 alleged apartheid-era spies, which had been handed to President Nelson Mandela and Deputy President Thabo Mbeki. De Lille’s intervention […]

brekfis* Madeleine Roux : Moveable feast No South African experience is quite complete without a heartburn produced by your average guest-house breakfast. The table groans under the weight of leftovers from the British Empire, complete with dismal cut-glass bowls and tacky cruets. Not only are we stuck with this terrible language as a legacy of […]

Marion Edmunds The Pan Africanist Congress found itself battling on two fronts this week to clear the name of its president, Dr Stanley Mogoba. This week it was alleged he had collaborated with the apartheid government against a comrade. Hours after PAC MP Patricia de Lille tried to shift the spotlight away from her party […]

Lorraine Pace : Design of the week Over-indulgent, maybe, attention grabbing, definitely. A Guide to the Good Stuff is a vibrant, passionate and energetic A2-format brochure which resonates with alternative art created by Johnnesburg’s street artists. The concept of advertising agency Net#Work’s Kam Naidoo and Mandi Stamelman, it catalogues the creative spirit of Johannesburg’s entrepreneurs. […]

South African soaps are being Africanised and upgraded to win international markets, reports Paul Martin in Cannes In a bid to make their South African products more saleable worldwide, the producers and distributors of the long- running Egoli and a new soap series, Blue Diamond, are deliberately bolstering and upgrading their African characters. The series’s […]

THURSDAY, 5.00PM LOCAL markets closed on Thursday without recovering from the morning’s crash, to record the biggest single-day fall on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange since the crash of October 1987. The industrial index closed 355 points lower at 8 682, and the all share index shed 326 points to close on 7 094. The financial […]

White farmers are convinced that renegade armed guerrillas are behind the recent rash of murders in rural areas, reports Justine Nofal John Biedge is a livestock farmer in the Eastern Cape and chair of the Maclear District Farmer’s Union, which represents an area comprising about 60 farms. On October 6 he faxed a list of […]

Brett Bailey’s play, iMumbo Jumbo, is putting a new slant on South African theatre. Janet Smith reports Everything about Brett Bailey shrieks didgeridoo-blowing, teepee-weekending white boy who’s managed to coil his tongue around a Xhosa click and thinks he’s in heaven. There’s something so flea-market fey about his short knitted waistcoat, small knitted cap and […]