OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Friday 7.00pm. PAULA McBride, the wife of jailed foreign affairs official Robert McBride, on Friday placed an advertisement in the press appealing for financial assistance for her husband’s legal costs. McBride on Friday said her husband’s legal costs have already run over $50000. The South African government has refused to pay […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Cape Town | Friday 9.30pm. CAPE Town magistrate Johan Venter, presiding over the inquest over the 1996 lynching of Hard Livings gang co-leader Rashaad Staggie on Friday warned the media against prejudicing or pre-empting inquest findings. Venter’s statement was in reaction to negative media reaction to an announcement by Advocate Willie Viljoen on […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Friday 9.00PM THE majority of the African National Congress’ majority will drop in the 1999 general election, according to a survey conducted in July. Survey company MarkData said on Friday the that poll indicated that 57% of voters would favour the ANC/SA Communist Party alliance — a 5,5% drop from the […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Harare | Friday 9.45pm. DYNAMOS of Zimbabwe maintained their impressive home record against Nigerian clubs with a 3-0 victory over Eagle Cement in an African Champions League Group A match in Harare on Sunday. The win takes Dynamos to the top of their pool on goal difference from Etoile du Sahel of Tunisia, […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, George | Friday 2.00PM UNREPENTENT former president PW Botha, found guilty in the George Regional Court on Friday of ignoring a Truth and Reconciliation Commission subpoena, has been sentenced to a fine of R10000 or 12 months in jail. Another 12 months was suspended for five years. Botha’s lawyers immediately said he intends […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Thursday 9.15pm. NATIONAL Petroleum Employers Association spokesman Lutz Kranz said that Sasol has reached an afternoon reached agreement with four chemical unions which could see striking employees returning to work on Friday night. Kranz said the agreement reached on Thursday afternoon still has to be ratified by the executive committee of […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Friday 6.00pm. PRIVATE television consortium Midi is reportedly embroiled in fall-out between shareholders over equity and mounting tension at senior management level, just over a month before it is set to launch its free-to-air television, e.tv, on October 1. Unconfirmed reports on Friday indicated that some key players of the consortium […]
JUSTIN ARENSTEIN, Nelspruit | Friday 8.30PM THE African National Congress expelled its controversial former deputy speaker in Mpumalanga, Cynthia Maropeng, on Friday after finding her guilty of bringing the party into disrepute. Provincial ANC spokesman, Jackson Mthembu, said on Friday evening that the party’s provincial executive committee (PEC) formally ratified a recommendation to revoke Maropeng’s […]
Use investment as a tool to manage your money instead of letting it manage you, writes Donna Block The market is cruel. It gives with no joy and takes with no mercy. If anyone’s forgotten this, the events of the past few weeks should serve as a reminder. Stock markets have been tumbling worldwide and […]
Sechaba ka Nkosi A controversial deal brokered between the SABC and MultiChoice to alter satellite television in South Africa has been put on ice. The move follows a detailed protest memo to the broadcasting ministry from the SABC’s main signal distributor, Sentech, and a series of meetings among stakeholders. Questions have also been raised about […]
wife on Women’s Day’ Tangeni Amupadhi A well-known Johannesburg psychiatrist is to appear in court next week on charges of battering his wife on National Women’s Day. According to Yeoville police, where the woman laid charges of common assault, the psychiatrist – who cannot be named for professional reasons – attacked his wife twice on […]
Watching local soccer drama Lisenethini on SABC1, Peter Makurube recalls days when failure to gain entry to a stadium reduced grown men to tears The creation of a soccer drama Lisenethini, starring local heroes, about our own demi-gods of the pigskin, is the best thing to have happened on television since the first screenings of […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Friday 11.00am. ORLANDO Pirates signalled their aspirations to the Premiership soccer title when they beat Supersport United 1-0 at the Caledonian Stadium on Saturday. The match started off at a pedestrian pace but quickly gathered momentum which led to Dumi Ngobe scoring a brilliant goal in the 23rd minute. Defender Gerald […]
Piet Gouws and PH `Tienie’ Groenewald A SECOND LOOK A serious problem has developed in the platteland. Brutal attacks against the farming community have reached such alarming proportions that, even though farmers are creating security structures to ensure their own safety and that of their labourers, the number of farmers in certain districts on the […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Cape Town | Thursday 7.00pm. AN inquest into the murder of Cape Flats drug-lord and gang leader Rashied Staggie, on Thursday heard evidence in Cape town that the group responsible for his death, Pagad, at the time considered the murder to be a military operation. A police operative Captain David Africa told the […]
front David Hirst Last month an “important announcement” appeared on a website, , “in the name of God the merciful, the compassionate”. It consisted of a brief interview which the journal al- Murabitoun – mouthpiece of al-Gama’a al-Islamiya, Egypt’s largest underground organisation – had with one of the group’s exiled leaders, Sheikh Abu Yasser Rifai […]
Neil Manthorp in Birmingham Cricket At last, some justice. The final moment of any significance, the last memory of the tour of England, was positive. Not just the victory, but the catch by Jonty Rhodes in the covers. So often we see great feats of athleticism diminished by the television replay. Occasionally they remain untarnished, […]
Charl Blignaut On stage in Johannesburg If what it takes for a talented young black co-writer and director to get his latest play mounted on the main stage at the Market Theatre is a Standard Bank Young Artist Award for Drama, an acclaimed United States tour and an artistic directorship at the North West arts […]
William Boot A secret commission of inquiry into the collapse of Namibia’s copper mining industry wrapped up its proceedings in Windhoek this week and is expected to move on to Johannesburg. It was established to investigate the role of Goldfields SA, owner of the Tsumeb Corporation Limited (TCL), in the closure of all four of […]
Springboks Andy Capostagno Rugby It is tempting to say what a difference a year makes, but undoubtedly there are a few pedants out there who will point out that when South Africa meet Australia in Saturday’s Tri-Nations decider at Ellis Park, it will actually be only 364 days since the two last met in a […]
Simone de Beauvoir described her companion and fellow philosopher, Jean-Paul Sartre, as her `greatest achievement’. But it was the American writer Nelson Algren who was the great love of her life. They began a passionate affair just as she was embarking on her landmark feminist text, The Second Sex. In her letters, she tells of […]
No child has ever fallen in love with reading from being given a textbook, argues Jay Heale It is well known that there is a crisis in education in this country. But there is one aspect of this agonising situation which seems to have been overlooked. We are so anxious to teach children how to […]
Mungo Soggot A respected arms expert, who was finance director for a South African company implicated in a massive weapons smuggling case in the United States, has been picked to run Armscor. Llewellyn Swan, who started as managing director of the weapons procurement company last week, has worked in the local arms industry for 22 […]
queen Michael Knipe Peggy Phango came to Britain from South Africa in 1961 as the female lead in the ground-breaking jazz musical King Kong. She played a glamorous shebeen queen – a role originated by her cousin, Miriam Makeba – in an exuberant show featuring an all-black cast and the jazz-influenced rhythms and harmonies of […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT | Friday 2.45pm. THE United Nations Security Council on Thursday unanimously adopted a resolution to suspend sanctions against Libya pending the arrival of the two Lockerbie bombing suspects in the Netherlands for trial. The resolution, designed to pressure Libya into sending the suspects to the Netherlands as soon as possible, also threatens additional […]
David Hirst The Sudanese opposition, a broad coalition of African southerners and Arab Muslim northerners known as the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), held a conference in Cairo this month to plan the next stage of its struggle against the Khartoum government. It is the first time Egypt has hosted such a gathering, and it is […]
Sandra Spavins EMILY-KATE by Meg Jordan (Iris) This is a story about a little girl who temporarily goes missing on a farm in KwaZulu-Natal. It is a large-format picture book, but has more text than most books of this type. The average eight or nine year old should be able to read it, yet the […]
Robert Kirby: Loose cannon I have it on the best authority that Monica Lewinsky is actually what is known in the espionage business as a “high-grade deep mole”. In truth Monica works for Saddam Hussein who personally coached her in the finer points of presidential seduction. The entire oval office sexual farrago is a brilliantly […]
Karen Jackman A new computer game designed to make Charles Darwin’s theories of evolution fun for biology students has earned an international award for its South African inventor. For the average 18-year-old, stepping into a new life as a university student does not involve donning a biohazard suit, digging up the missing link or tracking […]
Karlin Lillington For most earthlings, just finding a hotel with Internet access is a challenge. Nasa, however, thinks big. The space agency intends to have Mars “Internet-enabled” in the next three to four years. Last week at Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Dr Vinton Cerf, a senior vice-president at telecom company MCI, joined […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Thursday 11.00PM SUDANESE head of state Omar el-Beshir on Friday lashed out at US President Bill Clinton for ordering a military strike on Khartoum, and said his country will take the matter to the United Nations. The US overnight launched Tomahawk Cruise missiles at “terrorist” targets in Afghanistan and Sudan. The […]
Andrew Muchineripi English Premiership The English Premiership grows more cosmopolitan by the day with league and cup holders Arsenal among the clubs who bolstered their “foreign legion” during the close season. Defender Nelson Vivas was in the Argentine team that ended the World Cup dreams of England and arrived at Highbury from Swiss club Lugano […]