Staff Reporter

Howard Barrell: OVER A BARREL If we do begin to make dramatic inroads into unemployment in South Africa in the near future, we can probably be sure of one thing: the presidential Jobs Summit this week will have had very little to do with it. For, as one postponement of the get- together followed another […]

Friday night: Martin Nel I had intended spending my weekend club- hopping, and was psyching up for (some) Therapy in Braamies, and was crossing Rockey Street in Yeoville when I got highjacked by Tony from Rockerfellas, bursting to show me his new club in Picadilly Centre, for “black queers”. His last statement confused me, but […]

orphans David Gough in Kigali Clarissa Uwizcyimana last saw her son Kofi in December 1996, in the squalid refugee camp in eastern Congo where they had taken shelter two years earlier from the civil war and genocide raging in their native Rwanda. She had gone in search of food when a gunfight broke out between […]

staff survived With its staff drawn from such diverse backgrounds, there was as much tension within the TRC as at the public hearings, writes Gaye Davis The three-year life span of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) has been marked by public sensation throughout the hearings. But behind the public drama of tortured facing the […]

Belinda Beresford Unit trusts are the cloned computers of the financing world – they’re everywhere, they offer opportunities to people who would not be able to make a pedigree investment and they can prove an expensive mistake. One advantage of unit trusts is you can spread investment over time by buying monthly. This gives you […]

David Shapshak Debt relief topped the agenda at the Second Tokyo International Conference on African Development between October 19 and 21, when Japan announced a grant bail-out for some African countries. This was perhaps the most significant and concrete achievement of the conference, which adopted an ambitious “agenda for action” to halve the present levels […]

enough Guy Oliver When Nomonde Calata speaks of the defining moment of her life – the death of her husband, activist Fort Calata, in 1985 – 13 years disappear as if they had never been. The moment has not been dulled by the grand designs of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. In many ways, it […]

The TRC has found that torture and executions occurred in ANC camps in exile. Some of those targeted were killed as a result of bad leadership, jealousies and paranoia, writes Charlene Smith Chris Hani was once sentenced to death by Umkhonto weSizwe’s (MK) high command in Tanzania for putting forward the grievances of MK cadres. […]

Wonder Hlongwa It was handing over my autobank card and pin number that convinced me my visit to a loan shark was not going to be pleasant. A friend had told me that loan sharks were the quickest moneylenders in the city. The sign at the one in Braamfontein certainly seemed to back this up: […]

Many whiteys prefer Soweto to Sandton. Tangeni Amupadhi and Thokozani Mtshali talk to the township’s paler inhabitants Soweto’s majita (the guys) wave at Rudolf “Thokozani” Blignault as he travels the township selling coal for household use. Blignault is well known in large parts of the country’s biggest township, not only because he works there but […]

Sechaba ka’Nkosi Pressure by the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) has led to a decision by the African National Congress to smooth out differences with its communist and worker allies before the much-awaited Jobs Summit this week. The ANC took a strategic dive on macro-economic fundamentals and showed willingness to refocus its transformation […]

Paul Farrely: SHARE WORLD The irony is delicious. The despair in markets the world over has just made Wall Street’s biggest optimist very, very rich indeed. Last week, Abby Joseph Cohen, cool- headed chief investment strategist at Goldman Sachs and the United States’s most influential market guru, finally claimed one of the biggest prizes on […]

Belinda Beresford You’ve taken a deep breath and made the leap. You’ve made a commitment. You’re sharing the toothpaste, the washing-up and the telephone account. Now you’ve decided you want a joint bank account, either to pay the household bills or so you can truly express the unity of your relationship. True joint bank accounts, […]

Angella Johnson: VIEW FROM A BROAD I have found the Rainbow Nation. It has taken more than two years, but yes, I can unequivocally proclaim that President Nelson Mandela’s multiracial dream is alive and kicking under the bustling new Sundome Casino on the outskirts of Johannesburg. You see, in the gambling world all are equal, […]

Postponing sex and `zero grazing’ are just some of the ways in which Ugandans are coping with HIV/Aids, writes Mercedes Sayagues Sophia Mukasa-Monico (38) is a smart, elegant, strong-willed Ugandan lawyer. As we sip a cold drink one steamy Sunday afternoon in Kampala, she tells me a story. Seven years ago, her sister died of […]

Alex Duval Smith in Lagos Never mind the military regime’s promises of free elections. Never mind the international community’s endorsement. What 100-million Nigerians want to know is: what would Fela Kuti have said? The hard-living, outspoken inventor of afrobeat, who died last year and would have been 60 this Thursday, left behind both a musical […]

Katharine Whitehorn: FIRST PERSON So Arthur Koestler, giant thinker, whose Darkness at Noon helped to turn a generation of intellectuals away from communism, whose Thieves in the Night can make one almost understand Israel, whose forays into science and mysticism teased and intrigued us for three decades, turns out to have been a compulsive womaniser, […]

Wonder Hlongwa The growth of loan sharking to a R10- billion business in South African cities has prompted the Department of Trade and Industry to intervene and regulate the business. The proposed regulations, to be published by Minister of Trade and Industry Alec Erwin later this month, will be incorporated in a revision of the […]

Oral poetry has always played an important role in South African culture, write Richard Bowker and Peter Makurube When President Nelson Mandela entered his birthday bash at Gallagher Estate in July, he was led in by the boy-poet Samkhelo Mcandi, waxing lyrical about Madiba’s greatness. All in impeccable Xhosa. He was following in the footsteps […]

Gail Smith With everyone clamouring for the attention and income of the youth market (the black is silent), The Kwaito Storm is an event-in-waiting. Set to take place on Saturday night, October 31, at Johannesburg’s Electric Workshop, it promises to bring together some of the hippest, most happening of the blackoisie, kwaito’s latest and greatest, […]

Sharon Hammond The Kruger National Park will present its much-awaited proposal for a new policy on managing its elephant population on Saturday. This follows decades of highly emotional criticism for culling the animals in an effort to keep the population in the park at a fixed number of between 7 000 and 7 500. “We […]

year David Shapshak Desmond Tutu’s personal story of the time he spent as head of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) has been sold to publishers Random House and is scheduled to be in print by late next year. The deal was confirmed this week by Stephen Johnson, the head of Random House in South […]

The scramble to gag the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s (TRC) final report has soured what should have been a crowning moment for South Africa. We had wanted to show the world and ourselves that we could take our violent and dehumanised past, stare it in the face, acknowledge it and move on. Instead, we have […]

South Africa supports the aims of Jubilee 2000, but it seems we don’t qualify for debt relief. Ann Eveleth reports Each year the South African government spends as much money paying interest on its R338-billion debt as it does on education, but the Department of Finance insists there is no easy way out. Jubilee 2000 […]

Andy Capostagno Cricket Against all odds, the Mini World Cup in Bangladesh is set to be a huge success and the development committee of the International Cricket Council (ICC) headed up by our own Ali Bacher should pat themselves on the back. Before proceedings began there were questions and worries aplenty. Why, if it was […]

Thomas Olver THE MOMENT by Stefanus Stephanus Nel (Mortem Post) The realm of “experimental writing” is littered with the burnt-out corpses of many a poor volume of poetry or stories. So it is gratifying to discover new colour (albeit it black and white) in the local literary landscape. Stefanus Stephanus Nel’s booklet is such a […]

Jim McClellan meets a man who wants to sweep away the concept of the home computer Here’s a question to ponder: how many electric motors do you have in your house? Probably more than you realise. But you don’t think of them as electric motors. Instead, you just get on with using your food mixer […]

Maureen Barnes Down the tube Of all the irritating things about SABC TV, I think the one which bothers me the most is its inflexibility – a hangover, like so many aspects of the present service, from the previous policy-makers. SABC3 decided – and please don’t think I’m knocking this decision – that on Saturday […]

Ferial Haffajee `The owner needs the cow because of its milk. The cow needs the owner because he provides it with hay. But when the cow ceases to produce milk, the owner may well decide to slaughter it. The cow cannot do the same to the owner.” This is what Mozambican President Joaquim Chissano said […]

As the Japanese Grand Prix looms, two teams will be aching to celebrate victory -in their own separate ways. Maurice Hamilton reports If Michael Schumacher brings the world drivers’ championship to Ferrari this weekend, the town of Maranello in northern Italy will go berserk – even in the early hours of Sunday when the results […]

CDs of the week: Phillip Kakaza Although this country still boasts a lively jazz tradition, so much of the best of it was shipped away to flourish abroad. The Blue Notes, founded by innovative pianist Chris McGregor, went to exile in 1965. Apartheid prohibited them from performing as a racially mixed band in South Africa. […]

as a 23-year-old French man A 13-year-old boy goes missing in San Antonio, Texas. Three years later, he is found, alive, in Spain, with an appalling tale of kidnap and a paedophile ring. His family is overjoyed to have him home safe. But things are not quite as they seem. Nick Davies reports Just more […]