Staff Reporter

Richard Nelsson Spending It During the Eighties a bulging Filofax was the symbol of the successful and upwardly mobile; for the Nineties the “must have” is an electronic organiser. But these “personal digital assistants” (PDAs) are much more than just hi-tech versions of their leather-bound antecedents. The latest models have not only the capacity to […]

There is an easy way to combat the burgeoning business of cellphone theft, write Belinda Beresford and David Shapshak Cellphones are particularly enticing to the brotherhood of thieves, whether acquired in muggings, hijackings or straightforward burglaries. Cancelling the SIM card will stop anyone else running up your telephone account with calls to friends and acquaintances […]

Peter Makurube There is no better way to suss out where a country is at than through its music. There has never been any doubt about the quality of music this country can produce, the problem has been a chronic case of arrested development. Now that the old is out and the new is in […]

CD of the week Adam Sweeting The idea that Brian Wilson could ever again approximate his own back- catalogue masterpieces has grown increasingly laughable. There was the critically-feted Orange Crate Art in 1995, but that was really a Van Dyke Parks project cunningly disguised as a Brian Wilson album. While it’s true that Wilson has […]

October is welfare month, with activities planned around the country. But do we need it, asks Black Sash pension campaigner Rosemary Smith When the Roman authorities wanted to appease the populace, they laid on bread and circuses. The Department of Welfare’s planned activities for welfare month in October smack of circuses. Is it the right […]

Belinda Beresford Something is rotten in the state of South African business. The legacy of the old South Africa has been disrespect for the law and a culture of entitlement, and the past influences the present. Ahead of the latest round of awards to companies that do business honestly and openly, some of the seedier […]

Robert McCrum talks to his long-time friend Salman Rushdie as he emerges from the shadow of the fatwa `I didn’t expect to survive,” says Salman Rushdie. “I didn’t expect to live.” We are sitting alone in the office of anti-censorship group Article 19’s director, Frances D’Souza, in the aftermath of a sweaty press conference at […]

Paul Brown Evolution is saving elephants in Africa by producing herds with tiny tusks or none at all – which provides no profit for poachers and thus ensures the survival of the species. The phenomenon has been noticed in all parts of Africa where hunting has been going on longest, with both trophy hunters and […]

Alexander Chancellor REMIND ME WHO I AM, AGAIN by Linda Grant (Granta) It is told in this book how Frankie Vaughan, the handsome crooner once thought to be England’s answer to Frank Sinatra, came to acquire his surname. His real name was Francis Abelson, and he lived as a child with his sister, his mother […]

Has Narcissus taken over London’s art world? Adrian Searle reports Top TV prof Jonathan Miller, the gangling polymath, does it again: how can a mind be so full without exploding? His latest project, the exhibition Mirror Image: Jonathan Miller on Reflection, at the National Gallery in London, is a great idea. If you want to […]

Stuart Hess Patient care in Gauteng could be curtailed as state hospitals run out of funds because of overspending of this year’s budgets. Government health officials said no additional financial assistance will be made available until the start of the next financial year in April 1999. However, major institutions such as Chris Hani Baragwanath hospital […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Arusha | Thursday 7.30pm. THE former mayor of the Rwandan Taba commune during the 1994 genocide has appealed his conviction of crimes against humanity by the Untited Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, sitting in Arusha, Tanzania. The UN tribunal convicted 45-year-old Jean-Paul Akayesu of nine counts of genocide and crimes against humanity, […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Thursday 11.45am. THE familiar components of a market bloodbath were all in place on Thursday morning, and local indices delivered. The Dow lost 237 points on Wednesday night, and Asian markets were also down. Further, the International Monetary Fund’s recently released World Economic Outlook halved its worldwide growth forecasts, and projected […]

JUSTIN ARENSTEIN, Nelspruit | Thursday 6.00pm. THE African National Congress has formally suspended two more of its senior provincial leaders in Mpumalanga after weeks of persistent press reports about their complicity in irregularities. Provincial chairman and Mpumalanga premier Mathews Phosa said at a special conference on Thursday that the party decided to suspend finance MEC […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Cape Town | Thursday 10.00pm. A REFUGEE system that considers people’s rights is the aim of the Refugees Bill tabled in Parliament on Thursday. The draft legislation sets out new ways for dealing with refugees in line with United Nations standards and under the supervision of an independent refugee affairs committee. It proposes […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Thursday 7.20pm. SCUFFLES between police and workers at Edgars’ Kempton Park branch on Thursday marked the fourth day of a strike by the clothing group’s workers. South African Commercial Catering and Allied Workers Union assistant secretary-general Herbert Mkhize accused white policemen of complicity with Edgars management: “White policemen at the branch […]

DUDUZILE NKOMO, Harare | Wednesday 9.00pm. Duduzile Nkomo CONTROVERSIAL Zimbabwean member of Parliament Dzikamayi Mavhaire has repeated his call for President Robert Mugabe to step down. Mugabe has been in power for 18 years, since the country attained self-rule in 1980. Mavhaire, introducing a motion in Parliament which called on the government to undertake a […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Luanda | Wednesday 7.30pm. ANY threat to a member of the 14-nation Southern African Development Community will justify military intervention by other members, a meeting of defence chiefs has decided in Luanda. The meeting, attended by armed forces chiefs of staff of 10 SADC countries, was chaired by the Zambian representative, Solomon Mumbi, […]

SHARRON HAMMOND and STAFF WRITER, Nelspruit | Tuesday 7.45pm. MEMBER countries of the Southern Africa Development Community are planning to drop their international borders and unite to form one region within the next 30 years, department of home affairs chief migration officer Patrick Matlou said on Tuesday. Addressing a public hearing in Nelspruit, Mpumalanga, on […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Freetown | Wednesday 3.00pm. THE West African intervention force Ecomog needs at least 2000 additional troops to put an end to the war in Sierra Leone. Ecomog spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Jimoh Okunlola said on Tuesday: “Ivory Coast, Gambia and Mali have promised their support. We need at least 2000 men, real fighters, as […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Wednesday 7.30pm. LOCAL shares were lifted off their lows by some last minute unit trust buying today, but overall market sentiment was dragged down by disappointment over the direction of US markets. At the close, the JSE’s all-share index had lost 1.84%, the industrial index had fallen 1.65%, the financial index […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Wednesday 11.30am. ATHLETICS South Africa general secretary Banele Sindani said on Tuesday that South Africa’s Commonwealth Games athletics victories will mark a sea change in the relationship between athletes and administrators. “We have reached a turning point in South African athletics after the medals we won at the Games and the […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Kampala | Wednesday 8.30pm. A FORMER Ugandan cabinet minister and nine others have appeared in court in Kampala charged with treason. Assistant Police Superintendent Charles Dickens Ojakol, leading the prosecution, said that the 10 accused, and others still at large, plotted in Kampala and the Buganda region of central Uganda to overthrow the […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Wednesday 11.00am. DESPITE a bad start, South African middleweight champion Giovanni Pretorius won on points on Tuesday night in his eight-round bout against Russian Roman “Rauf” Babaev, at the Carousel north of Pretoria. The Russian came out well prepared in the first round, landing a heavy left-right-left combination early on, and […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Monday 8.30pm. THE strike by employees belonging to the South African Commercial Catering and Allied Workers Union on Monday forced the Edgars group to close certain operations, including shops in the Johannesburg CBD. Workers toyi-toyied outside shops, and several scuffles with police ensued, resulting in four workers being injutred and 10 […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Freetown | Tuesday 11.00pm. THE Sierra Leone government announced on Tuesday that it had foiled a jailbreak plot that would have led to the release of dozens of collaborators of the ousted military junta who are being tried for various offences. Attorney General and Minister of Justice Solomon Berewah told reporters in Freetown […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Nairobi | Tuesday 11.00pm. THE trial of a retired Kenyan Wildlife Services officer, Simon Ole Makallah, opened in Nairobi on Tuesday, 10 years after the murder of British tourist Julie Ward in the Masai Mara Game Reserve in south-western Kenya. Makallah, 48, is charged with killing Ward, 28, who disappeared from from her […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Tuesday 10.15pm. A NATIONWIDE strike by retail group Edgars workers moved into the second on Tuesday, with an increasing number of branches being forced to close their doors as the strike gathered momentum. By Tuesday afternoon the group had closed 11 branches and subsidiaries. The workers demand that management lift a […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Kampala | Tuesday 7.30pm. A SMALL aircraft carrying civilians and a top Ugandan army officer to a town controlled by rebels in north-eastern Democratic Republic of Congo has gone missing, a Ugandan army spokesperson said on Tuesday. Captain Shaban Bantariza said the aircraft, chartered from Tropical Airways, left Entebbe for Bunia, about 370km […]

JUSTIN ARENSTEIN, Nelspruit | Monday 6.00pm. THE town council of Ekangala, Mpumalanga, has been ordered to take disciplinary action against the chairman of its housing committee and a senior housing official, after they illegally issued promissory notes worth R78-million. The African National Congress also announced a review of councillor Jacob Masango’s role in the scheme. […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Cape Town | Monday, 10.30pm. COMMONWEALTH silver medallist Brendon Dedekind held out against strong-finishing Roland Schoeman to win the men’s 100m freestyle Monday, posting his fourth African record of the Telkom SA short course championships in Cape Town. Deaf Durbanite Terence Parkin annihilated his personal best time to set a continental mark in […]

SHARRON HAMMOND, Nelspruit | Tuesday 8.00pm. MPUMALANGA’S suspended parks chief, Alan Gray, refused to answer written questions about his business dealings with government or government contractors on Tuesday and instead threatened to sue reporters. Gray said in a lawyer’s letter that elements within the media were conducting personal crusades and vendettas against him and had […]