Staff Reporter

Peter Dickson Special courts are planned for the hearing next year of a backlog of more than 400 government-related fraud and corruption cases in the Eastern Cape. The decision was taken at the province’s first anti-corruption summit held in East London last week after Premier Makhenkesi Stofile asked for broader input on Bisho’s proposals. It […]

Labuschagne Wally Mbhele A senior policeman who once targeted the present-day chief of the South African National Defence Force (SANDF), General Siphiwe Nyanda, for assassination, and abducted and tortured Nyanda’s wife, was this week bluntly denied amnesty by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). Amid strong opposition to his application from victims’ families, Senior Superintendent […]

With the high crime rate, South African drivers are increasingly signing up for breakdown cover, reports Jacqui Pile It’s a South African nightmare – being stranded on the side of the road with a flat tyre, or even worse, being involved in an accident far from home. Breakdown and emergency cover is increasingly being considered […]

Bob Woolmer FROM THE PAVILION No team likes to get beaten, and, on the whole, England’s management were happy to concede that South Africa had played very well in order to win the first Test by an innings. Normally it would end there. But there was a proviso. The English team and many of its […]

countries Aaron Nicodemus The United States has done an about-face this week on the issue of intellectual property rights for Aids drugs, a development welcomed by Aids activists and researchers. On World Aids Day, President Bill Clinton announced that the US will develop a co- operative approach on health-related intellectual property matters in order for […]

Heather Hogan When Sergeant Hendrik de Klerk (26) used only his hands to arrest an armed bank robber outside a bank in Hillbrow earlier this year, he never imagined he would be awarded the Top Cop of the Year award. When the robber shot at him, he disregarded his own safety: his only thought was […]

Q&A Durban musical icon Roderick “Ricky” Stewart Gass has a passion for poetry, music and charity. His long and chequered career has taken him from a Durban orphanage into the police service of Rhodesia; from chart success and stadium fame back to Durban, where he now runs an animal welfare charity shop and plays music […]

Thebe Mabanga The South African music industry is littered with a lot of ills and has a long history of neglecting artists and compromising artistic integrity to make a quick buck. This has begun to change slowly with the emergence of small, independent record labels. With new approaches to development and a wealth of experience, […]

Paul Kirk Camouflage is illegal. The only people who may be in possession of the trendy material are the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) and the elite special task force of the South African Police Service (SAPS). Terry Lyons, the owner of a Durban company called Cammo Joe, has been prosecuted and convicted for […]

MARIANNE MERTEN, Cape Town | Friday 11.30am. THE fraud case against high-flying mafioso Vito Palazzolo was postponed on Friday morning in the Cape Town Regional Court until February 11 next year. Palazzolo, out on R500000 bail, was arrested earlier this month by the elite Scorpions police unit for fraud relating to false information he gave […]

In 1972 a young woman living in England, just out of school and waiting to go to university, travelled to Zambia to work as a volunteer teacher at a mission school. She returned home to England via South Africa, catching a boat from Cape Town to Southampton. She only spent a few days in transit […]

CD of the week The Artist’s name was Prince, and he was funky. And then, due to a combination of legal problems and indiscriminate releases, he wasn’t. Since his dispute with former label WEA over the rights to album masters, his funkiness diminished even as his output increased. A new LP seemed to appear every […]

Heather Hogan Bushy Molefe, Minister of Defence Mosiuoa Lekota’s personal assistant, will appear in the Pretoria Regional Court on Monday on charges of child abuse. According to the police, Molefe is charged with molesting the 11-year-old daughter of another official in the Ministry of Defence. The charge was laid at the Pretoria West police station […]

Howard Barrell and Barry Streek The decision by top government leaders at an all-day meeting in Pretoria on November 29 to accelerate privatisation of state- owned enterprises is of great political and economic importance, according to officials who were present. The meeting represented a commitment by the government to economic restructuring – whatever the potential […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Maputo | Friday 9.50am. POLLS for the country’s second democratic elections opened in Mozambique on Friday with President Joaquim Chissano expected to win re-election, but possibly lose control of parliament to the former rebel movement Renamo. The two-day presidential and general elections, the second democratic polls since Mozambique’s independence in 1975, began early […]

Andrew Muchineripi Soccer comment One wag interrupted a prolonged perod of silence at Loftus Stadium in Pretoria on Wednesday night to ask a companion what the difference was between the Titanic and South African soccer. The Titantic cannot sink any further, came the sharp reply to much laughter, and while it may have been a […]

Frelimo leader Joaquim Chissano can expect to win Mozambique’s presidential election, but the Parliament poll is another matter, writes Chris McGreal Mozambique’s first freely elected Parliament spent four years wringing out a new Constitution. It was agreed that the flag, with its Kalashnikov and soviet star, would have to go, along with the national anthem. […]

Paul Kirk Zulu King Goodwill Zwelithini spent R92 500 – of taxpayers’ money – on fumigating his homes for cockroaches in the past year. The Mail & Guardian has invoices detailing the king’s expenditure, which includes R400 000 a month on a Lear jet, R16 000 repairing his jacuzzi and steam room and R12 000 […]

Shaun de Waal Movie of the week The Blair Witch Project may have already outdone Star Wars Episode IV: The Phantom Menace and Eyes Wide Shut as the most hyped movie of 1999, except that the hype around it was relatively organic. That is to say, this low-low-budget movie (a mere $30 000 to put […]

As the new mediator in the Burundi crisis, Nelson Mandela will have to work hard to convince the key players in the strife that they can benefit from peace.

EGYPT’s Oil Ministry has discovered four new oil and gas fields with an estimated total production of 5240 barrels per day of oil and total reserves of 41,5-million barrels. Official figures show Egyptian oil production in September was running at 768000 bpd versus 803100 bpd in September 1998. The Oil Ministry said in September the […]

The way business approaches the Net is about to change radically, reports Neil McIntosh On the face of it, XML sounds dull. You won’t be able to see it, it will add no fancy animations or multimedia-rich content to your screen, and it doesn’t come with a metallic finish or colourful see-through skin. It’s a […]

Evidence wa ka Ngobeni Police in the Eastern Cape are incapable of reaching crime-ridden villages because of bad roads in the impoverished province. Serious crimes like rape go unreported because communities are unable to get to police stations, which are mostly situated kilometres away from the remote areas. But this situation is expected to change […]

As Cliff Richard’s pious dirge races up the charts, Stephen Moss explains why the Bible-bashing, sexless bore is still a star Cliff Richard is like the queen: always there, always in the papers, almost born famous. And yet we know next to nothing about him. He has made more hit records than anyone else, has […]

Zolile Machi and his family, in Durban’s Kwa Mashu township, had been caring for a cousin believed to have Aids. He describes how life changed when he arrived, and when he left A cousin from the South Coast arrived on our doorstep the other evening. He was carrying a huge but almost empty black Nike […]

NAMIBIA Breweries Limited is finalising a new joint venture with Germany’s biggest export brewery, the Bremen-based Beck & Co. In a statment NBL said an agreement has already been signed in terms of which a holding company will be formed with Ohlthaver & List as the majority shareholder. O&L said the venture is a “massive […]

Alois Brunner sent at least 129 000 Jews to the death camps. Serge Klarsfeld, the French lawyer who helped track down Klaus Barbie, is determined to bring him to trial. Jo Glanville reports Many people remember Alois Brunner. Philip Vock saw him yelling in the yard of Drancy transit camp, on the outskirts of Paris, […]

declining Your articles (November 19 to 25) about the problems in tertiary education should have mentioned the declining standards in the quality of people who are being appointed as professors in our universities, and the lack of any professional body that can punish them for misconduct. A case in point occurred recently in Pietermaritzburg. An […]

Pierre Buyoya: President from 1987 to 1993 and from 1996 to the present day. A wily operator who enjoys being president but is nonetheless apparently sincere in his efforts to give it up to the Hutu opposition when he judges the moment to be right. Commands the loyalty of the army though not unconditionally. Many […]

Stefaans Brmmer and Mungo Soggot A Johannesburg-based German businessman recently named in the British press and in local intelligence reports as an arms dealer with pariah states says he is the victim of a plot by old-guard intelligence operatives. Rudolph Heinrich Wollenhaupt says that for several years he has been the target of an orchestrated […]

Cameron Duodu LETTER FROM THE NORTH There are certain glorious moments that define our common humanity. Such moments demonstrate vividly that despite our different colours, social backgrounds and geographical location, we can meld our disparate spirits together and fight for the survival of our beautiful planet. One such defining moment occurred in 1984/1985 when Bob […]

Shaun Harris TAKING STOCK There’s a deluge of investment advice available nowadays, so much that ordinary, individual investors probably feel a bit overwhelmed when considering where to put their spare funds. Much of this advice, however, is aimed at the institutions, particularly advice on equity investments. Stock market shares can be a great investment, but […]