TRISH MURPHY, Pretoria | Tuesday 10.00PM. FORMER state president PW Botha did not directly request unlawful action in making South African Council of Churches headquarters Khotso House “unusable”, former law and order minister Adriaan Vlok testified before the Truth and Reconciliation amnesty hearing on Tuesday. But given the circumstances, he said, there was no other […]
LEONARD NDZUKULA, East London | Monday 8.00PM. THE Heath special investigation unit has given East London businessman Neil Stuart Kerr until Friday to explain how he spent more than R4,3-million he allegedly received from a justice department cheque theft syndicate. Judge Willem Heath’s unit initially threatened to haul Kerr, a regional manager for Tedelex, before […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Port Elizabeth | Tuesday 6.30PM. A FORMER agent of the Civil Co-operation Bureau and a boat skipper appeared in the Port Elizabeth Magistrate’s Court on Tuesday in connection with last month’s huge arms cache founds at Redhouse outside the city. The former agent, Cassie Kruger, and skipper Willie Hennop were arrested on Monday […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Cape Town | Tuesday, 6.00PM LAWTERS acting for Western Cape director-general Niel Barnard have served notice on African National Congress provincial leader Ebrahim Rasool that Barnard intends to sue him for defamation. Barnard is believed to be seeking a R20-million settlement from Rasool following the ANC leader’s claims last week that the director-general […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Luanda | Tuesday, 7.00PM THE United Nations observer mission in Angola has opened an investigation into last week’s massacre of 215 people in the north-east village of Mussuku in Lunda-Norte province. The mission has sent police and observers to investigate the killings, which the Angolan government has blamed on Unita rebels. Unita has […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Swakopmund | Monday, 9.30PM NAMIBIAN President Sam Nujoma on Sunday night called on Southern African leaders to cultivate smart partnerships crucial for the region’s economic development. Nujoma was speaking at a banquet for Southern African Development Community heads of state who are attending the second three-day Southern African International Dialogue (Said) in the […]
ROB DAVIES reports | Sunday, 1.00PM THE Springbok rugby side on Saturday succeeded in breaking a 17-year drought when they beat the New Zealand All Blacks 13-3 at Athletic Park in Wellington. It was the first time since the 1981 Boks of Wynand Claasen that a South African side managed to beat the All Blacks […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Monday 11.00AM. FORMER Lonrho head and owner of The Observer, Tiny Rowland, died in a London hospital early on Friday, aged 80, from skin cancer. A renowned maverick and brilliant businessman, Rowland has in recent years been notable for his criticisms of the way his former Lonrho empire has been run, […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Cape Town | Monday 7.30PM. DR Niel Barnard, provincial director of the Western Cape, instructed his attorneys on Monday to serve a summons for libel against African National Congress provincial leader Ebrahim Rasool. Last Thursday, Rasool alleged that Barnard was involved in casino allocation bribery. He withdrew the allegations on Friday, but Barnard […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Monday 4.45PM. FORMER Nigerian senator Polycarp Nwite — jailed last year by the late military ruler General Sani Abacha — was released on Monday. Nwite’s release comes after a general amnesty was granted to political detainees by the new ruler, General Abdulsalam Abubakar, last week. Nwite, who sat as chairman of […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Dakar | Monday 8.30PM. GOVERNMENT and rebel soldiers in Guinea-Bissau on Monday signed an accord aboard a Portuguese warship anchored in the port of Bissau to observe an immediate ceasefire. The ceasefire agreement is the result of mediation by six fellow Portuguese-speaking countries. The accord calls for formal negotiations to start within eight […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Monday 5.40PM. FORMER English skipper Mike Atherton hit 98 unbeaten runs to take England to an eight wicket victory against South Africa on the final day of the fourth Test at Trent Bridge. Midaway through the afternoon session Atherton hit the winning runs off Shaun Pollock to level the series at […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Monday 7.30PM. THE trial of Brigadier Jack Cronje and Captain Jacques Hechter was provisionally removed from the roll of the Pretoria High Court pending the outcome of an amnesty application before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The former security policemen are part of a group of five who gave evidence before […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Cape Town | Sunday. 1.00PM. THE 1998 Currie Cup season seems intent on producing upsets and surprises with every match, and even relatively small sides are staking their claim to the trophy. The Golden Lions’ competition woes continue after they were beaten 19-17 by the MTN Falcons at the Bosman stadium in Brakpan […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Harare | Friday, noon A NEW publishing consortium, including Independent Newspapers, plans to launch various titles in Zimbabwe to compete with the parastatal Newspaper Group and Zimbabwe Newspapers. Weekly local papers are planned for all major cities, as is the resurrection of the Daily News, banned in 1964 by Ian Smith’s white government. […]
Andrew Worsdale Movie of the week In 1947 Vladimir Nabokov started writing what he dubbed “a short novel about a man who liked little girls”. Seven years later he finished it but it was rejected as pornography by American publishers and was finally published in Paris by Olympia Press. After a rash of glowing reviews […]
Douglas Rushkoff Online So far, only my Melbourne sponsors have let me keep the original title of the talk I’ve been giving around the world this month: Why Futurists Suck. I shouldn’t have been so surprised that 500 concerned Australians would fill the cavernous Malthouse Theatre to participate in a free exchange about our collective […]
David Beresford It was j’accuse flavoured with a dash of mea culpa when Adriaan Vlok this week appeared before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to explain how he contributed to “law and order” by blowing up office blocks and cinemas. Vlok, who was minister of law and order between 1986 and 1994 – the most […]
Robert Kirby: Loose Cannon It has taken France – at long last – to realise Oscar Wilde’s famous parody of a dreary Victorian homily. Wilde turned the phrase around and made it: “Work i s the curse of the drinking classes.” What French bureaucracy is now doing is realising controversial legislation that will reduce the […]
totters The Asian Tiger’s once seemingly unstoppable roar is now a meow. The economic meltdown that started a year ago with the devaluation of the Indonesian baht has had a devastating effect on the economies caught in its wake. Stock markets in the region were decimated. The trouble was that few saw it coming. During […]
Phillip Kakaza Live in Johannesburg Difficulties with the political situation at home in Kinshasa, Zaire, prompted them to seek refuge in neighbouring countries. Their first stop was Cameroon, second Kenya and then Namibia. They later settled in South Africa where, on arrival, they were faced with humiliation. But The Fantastique Guys, a 12-piece band, never […]
Ferial Haffajee As former law and order minister Adriaan Vlok came clean before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission this week, a smaller act of absolution was happening in Potchefstroom. Willem Boshoff, a destitute 58-year- old, has apologised to journalists Laurence Gandar and Benjamin Pogrund for his role in a trial which chalked up a dark […]
Anthea Garman experienced the !Xoe Site Specific exhibition around Nieu Bethesda in the Karoo `Do you have a believable sense of place?” is the simple, cheeky, and only bit of written information about the first installation we stop to see outside Nieu Bethesda. This is artwork number five by Marco Cianfanelli and we’ve chosen to […]
Wally Mbhele The head of a KwaZulu-Natal prison who was recently suspended after his alleged involvement in the death of a prisoner is back at work. Minister of Correctional Services Sipho Mzimela promised an inquiry into the actions of Sipho Dlamini, head of the Ingwavuma prison. Prisoners claim they were not informed that the inquiry […]
Niki Barker A major British film company has based itself in the safari town of Hluhluwe in northern Zululand to make the film version of Kuki Gallman’s book, I Dreamed of Africa. Confirmed leads are Oscar-winning actress Kim Basinger (LA Confidential) and Vincent Perez (Swept from the Sea). Hugh Hudson (Chariots of Fire, Greystoke) will […]
Claudia H Deutsch from New York For years now, environmentalists have tried to persuade investors to eschew putting money into companies that pollute. Not surprisingly, Wall Street has sneered, insisting that a good way to maximise shareholder wealth is to minimise environmental costs. But now the do-gooders are confronting the money folk with evidence that […]
Howard Barrell Over a Barrel You don’t have to be a fluent Afrikaans- speaker to know that an oorleg committee is not the same as an oorlog committee. The former seeks consultation; the latter war. A Cape Town English-language newspaper, however, got them mixed up recently. Some of us might even say the confusion was […]
For the new ANC chair in KwaZulu-Natal, peace is a priority, writes Swapna Prabhakaran The newly elected African National Congress chair in KwaZulu-Natal has vowed that next year’s elections will happen on non-violent terms – or not at all. S’bu Ndebele, who took over the reins from outgoing provincial party chair Jacob Zuma this week, […]
Orange Farm – to build houses Evidence wa ka Ngobeni A four-roomed house was once an impossible dream for an unemployed single mother living in an Orange Farm shack. But this week Sinaila Shabani and her four children moved into their dream house – built by 22 volunteer Irish students and residents of the sprawling […]
Tangeni Amupadhi Armed robbers have gone cerebral. Second-hand bookshops are the latest targets for an enterprising criminal duo who have hit at least six outlets in the past six weeks. The smartly dressed men, armed with their own “closed for business” sign, have made off with an undisclosed amount of money and left behind few […]
Tangeni Amupadhi A Northern Cape doctor has called for the mandatory use of protective clothing after an outbreak of chemical poisoning affecting dozens of farmworkers. Many labourers in the Kakamas and surrounding areas have fallen ill during the past month after coming into contact with Dormex, which contains a highly toxic chemical called cyanamide. The […]
Marianne Thamm There are those who are of the opinion that art is a sacred calling and that the artist, like the young Catholic nun or Buddhist monk, should relinquish the pursuit of material gain to meet the rigours and demands of the vocation. Alone and poverty-stricken (well, at least some of the time) in […]