Staff Reporter

Melvyn Minnaar potable pleasures Since the great gates to wealth from world- wide wine sales opened, former vineyard bywoners and enriched company directors alike jumped on to the South African brand wagon for their sip of the market. The result has been a plethora of new trade titles for wine. A number of the recently […]

The witness protection programme offers protection to individuals, but not their families, writes Mungo Soggot Key witnesses to the killings which have ravaged the KwaZulu-Natal Midlands town of Richmond have refused to join the witness protection programme. The witnesses are either anxious to protect their families for whom the scheme does not cater or are […]

Gustav Thiel Residents of Claremont, a neighbourhood south of Johannesburg caught in a web of paranoia since an alleged serial killer murdered four people there in July, believe the tragedies should have been prevented by the police. Hendrik van Wyk, whose sister Lelanie lost her life on July 19 when the killer struck twice in […]

Andy Duffy North West province Premier Popo Molefe wants his education MEC to explain to the public why she engaged her sister-in-laws legal services instead of using state attorneys at no cost. An investigation Molefe ordered last year into education in the province uncovered severe management failings, with evidence that MEC Mamoekoena Gaoretelelwe was often […]

M&G Reporter The National Arts Council Bill has finally been passed by parliament after drafters quietly ditched the controversial clause that could have enabled the national arts and culture department to hijack the council. Clause 13 which was seen as a major threat to the councils independence has been replaced with a clause that says […]

Marion Edmunds President Nelson Mandela has instructed all African National Congress parliamentarians to tell him, in face-to-face interviews, what constituency work they do. Mandela?s interest, announced at a recent ANC caucus meeting, is provoked by concern that MPs are neglecting their constituency work and failing to disseminate information to the people about the government?s progress. […]

Glynis OHara : Massed Choir Festival When Sally June Gain opened her throat and let out powerful, ineffably beautiful high notes in Verdis Sempre Libera from La Traviata, the audience went wild. Right in the middle of the aria. They were on their feet and cheering wildly by the end, so much so that she […]

unfairly? Craig Bishop Eight months into perhaps the toughest provincial job in the country, Eastern Cape Premier, the Reverend Makhenkesi Stofile, is under pressure to take heavy-handed action to control fraud and deliver government services. A recent Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) survey found he was the least popular premier in South Africa. Stofile (50), […]

FRIDAY, 3.30PM WINNIE MADIKIZELA-MANDELA appeared reluctantly before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission on Friday, her 64th birthday. Subpoenaed to a closed hearing to answer questions relating to her alleged links to 18 gross human rights violations, Madikizela-Mandela requested the inquiry to be public so that “the matter can be dealt with once and for all”. […]

Mungo Soggot A new mystery backer has leapt to the support of Allan Boesak and hired President Nelson Mandelas family lawyers to brief senior counsel for the alleged fraudster. Ismail Ayob, the senior partner at Ismail Ayob and Partners and longtime attorney for the Mandela family, says his firm is acting for a client from […]

Madeleine Wackernagel British Airports Authority (BAA), the worlds largest private airport manager, is joining the bidding process for a strategic equity stake in the Airport Company of South Africa (Acsa). BAA, itself a successful privatisation story, hopes to add significant value to the commendable efforts of Acsas management and staff, according to Richard Jeffrey, director […]

Veteran B-movie maker Sam Fuller once said that in order to make a movie youve obviously got to have money and in order to have money you gotta woo people with proverbial bullshit, but … the last thing in the world to be worried about is how to make the picture. After the money, the […]

Cosatus business arm aims to seize economic power for the majority, writes Sechaba kaNkosi Tumelo Motsisi passionately dismisses any notion that he is a capitalist in a socialist movement. He sees no contradiction between the Congress of South African Trade Unions confessed ideology of socialism and his role as head of the federations business arm, […]

Ferial Haffajee : Design of the week The Mail & Guardians Design of the Year prize may just have been awarded. Yes, yes, we know its usually only done at the end of the year, but brand new Gauteng-based radio station YFMs invitation to their launch party is going to be a hard act to […]

FRIDAY, 2.30PM NATIONAL policy guidelines for dealing with the victims of sexual offences were launched at the Protea Magistrate’s Court in Soweto on Friday. The guidelines were compiled by the departments of Justice, Safety and Security, Health, Welfare, and Correctional Services, Deputy Justice Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang said in a statement. “For the first time, state […]

FRIDAY, 12.30PM: BAFANA Bafana coach Clive Barker has included five new uncapped players in the squad to play France in Lens on October 11. The new players are defenders Willem Jackson (Orlando Pirates) and Pierre Issa (Olympic Marseilles), midfielders Brian “Baby Jake” Sebapole and Alex “Barnes” Bapela (Sundowns), and striker Simon Makhubela (Manning Rangers). The […]

The financial records of the Kwazulu Natal Arts and Culture Council are being investigated, reports Suzy Bell Chaos surrounds the powerful provincial funding and administrative body, the KwaZulu Natal Arts Cultural Council (KZNACC), as an internal audit and an external investigation gets wrapped up to determine whether or not the council is guilty of misuse […]

Andy Duffy and Marion Edmunds A government bash on Robben Island to celebrate Heritage Day cost the taxpayer up to R1-million R2 500 for every name on the exclusive guest list. The guest list also excluded at least three white opposition leaders National Party chief Marthinus van Schalkwyk, the Democratic Partys Tony Leon, and the […]

FRIDAY, 8.00AM: NEW Springbok coach Nick Mallet, appointed on Thursday, hinted that unlike his predecessor, he won’t sideline a world-class star like Japie Mulder. “Japie does not have to play a match to prove anything,” said Mallet, who said he is simply watching to make sure Mulder has recovered from injury. Mallet, a former Springbok […]

Ferial Haffajee After five years of talking, the SABC and the Performing Arts Workers Equity (Pawe) have signed a landmark agreement. For the first time, South Africas artists and those who work in the sector, will have a detailed performance contract which guarantees better and safer working conditions as well as a slice of the […]

Wonder Hlongwa African National Congress national chairman Jacob Zuma has been involved in intense lobbying to get Zulu King Goodwill Zwelithini and Inkatha Freedom Party president Mangosuthu Buthelezi to patch up their family quarrel and appear on the same platform at the symbolically important Shaka Day celebrations. Zuma said he had been acting as a […]

In the week of this years gay pride march, we look at the significance of queer icon Oscar Wilde, and debate the problems surrounding the Johannesburg parade Peter Conrad Ignominy effaced Oscar Wilde as soon as he was hauled off to prison in 1895. His name was summarily blacked out on theatre marquees in Londons […]

Mungo Soggot An influential United States medical journal has accused South African doctors of endangering the lives of scores of babies to test new drug treatments for pregnant women infected with the HIV virus. The New England Journal of Medicine says the drug trials which deny some of their human guinea pigs effective, available treatment […]

Charl Blignaut As last years Gay and Lesbian Pride Parade wound its way through Johannesburgs grimy inner city, a rumour began to circulate amongst the marchers. The organisers, it was said, were planning to move the 1997 event north to upper-class Sandton or Rosebank away from its roots and even further from Soweto. To more […]

Madeleine Wackernagel : Taking Stock The international financial magazine Euromoney this week voted Trevor Manuel best African finance minister, citing Gear as an example of Manuels innovative style and his ability to push his plans through government. But as the delegates at last weeks Cosatu congress made only too clear, not everybody is as enamoured […]

league Andrew Muchineripi : Soccer Offered a choice of a present between a terrier of dubious pedigree and an award- winning Maltese poodle, Wits University Football Club coach Eddie Lewis would consistently plump for the former. His approach to a game he loves and has been involved in for more years than he readily cares […]

Globalisation has all the appeal of an express train with no driver in the cab, argues Larry Elliot In many ways, DH Lawrence was the prototype green. The constant theme of his novels was the way in which the hard, mechanistic world of the industrial West was sucking the life out of mankind. This scene […]

Nelson Mandela has raised hopes for a negotiated end to the Indonesian occupation of East Timor. In the interim, the political battle continues. Peter Cronau and Matthew Brown report The Indonesian government is using its embassies worldwide in a campaign of surveillance and intimidation against East Timorese activists and their supporters, claims Nobel Peace Prize […]

Whether or not Mother Nature inflicts El Nio on South Africa this year, new legislation aims to distribute water fairly, reports Ann Eveleth Water affairs minister Kader Asmals move to regulate farmers water rights this week is just the tip of the iceberg on an innovative plan to turn South Africas water priorities upside down. […]

Ellen Bartlett South Africa has long operated under the assumption that it is running out of water. The year 2020 is the oft-projected point at which the country will no longer have enough water to meet its needs. In looking towards a future of high demand and dwindling supply, water resources planners have considered such […]

SABC TVs programming is about to undergo a facelift. Ferial Haffajee reports The whittling and tweaking of programming at the SABC will soon bring big changes to television current affairs. October offers two new evening programmes and two hours of breakfast television each week day, while the Truth Commission Special Report will double in length. […]

A new commission to investigate the costs of dams puts South Africa at the centre of the debate on sustainable development, writes Aspasia Karras On a live satellite link-up between Washington and Cape Town, the World Bank and the World Conservation Union this week announced they would be establishing a world commission on dams in […]