The Angella Johnson Interview Look at the photograph. Familiar, isn’t he? It’s Bankole Omotoso, or as he’s more popularly known, Yebo Gogo – the face that launched a slew of Vodacom cellphones. Here is a true Renaissance man; a master of many trades who refuses to be tied down to just one job. When this […]
Wally Mbhele Lingering political tensions in the Free State from last year’s battle between its then premier, Patrick “Terror” Lekota, and his rivals were blamed for the recent chaos that erupted at the province’s women’s league conference. Its proceedings came to a dramatic halt when the Free State African National Congress general secretary, Sello Dithebe, […]
Janet Smith SA Fashion Week 1997 Designers who’ve paid fees of between R10 000 and R40 000 each to present their ranges are pinning their sumptuous fabrics on what could be a renaissance of fashion for fashion’s sake at South Africa’s first ever fashion week. Sponsors like Audi have invested R80 000 for each of […]
Robert Kirby : Loose cannon The residual loyalty the British royal family continues to inspire – even at this far end of their old Empire – is often quite bewildering. One would have thought that, by the end of the 20th century, the stubborn parasitical existence of any royal houses anywhere would be tolerated only […]
THURSDAY, 5.30PM AUDITOR-General Henri Kluever on Thursday responded to allegations by Mineral and Energy Affairs Minister Penuell Maduna that he had dishonestly accounted for R170-million missing from the Strategic Fuel Fund by saying his office’s handling of the SFF accounts was honest and above board. “I have been in the civil service all my life […]
FRIDAY, 3.30PM THE East Rand municipality of Sporings in Gauteng said on Friday that it is in dire financial straits and might not be able to meet its salary obligations at the end of the month. Springs municipality executive committee chairman Tatis Phasha said the council had already defaulted on R12-million owed to electricity utility […]
Janet Smith The way you see the world had better be elegant, fast, utterly modern and definitely sexy if you want to survive youthtopia into the next millennium. Even if there’s a cause, it may no longer be conducted in Jesus sandals and roll-on deodorant. The way Cape Town’s Nobleman Motsa is seeing the world […]
Dear Walter, Sorry I have been out of touch for so long, but I have been frantically busy resolving man-kind’s problems. As you know, the miracles we performed in bringing peace to South Africa have given us a reputation as the world’s foremost political mediators. As a result, whenever a tiff breaks out between ruler […]
FRIDAY, 4.30PM GAUTENG safety and security MEC Jessie Duarte and informal traders’ organisations on Friday condemned the looting and destruction of property during protest action on Wednesday and Thursday. On Thursday afternoon, 120 hawkers were arrested for taking part in illegal marches after they marched on police stations to demand the release of six of […]
Anna Tack Nothing is for free, or so the trusim goes. But in these days of high-tech toys like music samplers and computer scanners seamlessly colonising everyone else’s ideas through a superimposition here or a misrepresentation there, the question of who owns what has assumed paramount importance worldwide. And on the cyber highway the issue […]
In the week that Bophuthatswana’s former president Lucas Mangope went on trial for fraud and theft, John Seiler argues for effective financial management to prevent corruption Another R25-million stolen in the apartheid-era Bophuthatswana has been revealed by the auditor general’s office. A report issued last week refers to a R19,5-million payment which the South African […]
FRIDAY, 11.30AM The finance ministry on Thursday signed a partnership deal with a consortium of local and international businesses for the re-engineering of the government pension fund. The Government Employees’ Pension Fund, SA’s largest, with 1,25-million members and annual pay-outs of R9-billion, has been running in deficit for years. Recent management changes have decreased the […]
The horrific murder of a child at the hands of his peers has seen a community grappling to come to terms with itself. Gaye Davis reports The people of the working-class Cape Flats suburb of Factreton are no strangers to death and violence. Turf wars between two local gangs, the Americans and the Casbahs, have […]
Julian Drew Soccer George Castador’s little establishment near the central market in Pointe Noire was really cooking the night before Congo played South Africa in April. A shebeen on top of one of the single-storey buildings surrounding the market, there was plenty of space to dance to what is one of the best record collections […]
Mozambique’s north South African farmers are moving into northern Mozambique, raising hopes, concerns and some belly laughs among inhabitants. Mercedes Sayagues reports Rural folk in Niassa province have never been so entertained. First came the missionaries. Braving mud and dust, gaping potholes and flimsy bridges, dozens are preaching the Dutch Reformed Church gospel across northern […]
Greg Bowes: Music He’s widely regarded as the father of house music, the four-to-the-floor style that currently eclipses all others on the world’s dancefloors. He’s remixed or worked with some of pop music’s biggest guns. His deejaying skills are legendary. He is Frankie Knuckles, and he’s on his way to South Africa next month to […]
Ex-Drum photographer Jrgen Schadeberghas won the battle for ownership of his photographs, reports Hazel Friedman Legendary photographer Jrgen Schadeberg has finally won his David versus Goliath battle against publisher Jim Bailey. The long, bitter war waged by the ex-Drum photographer against the former owner of the pioneering African magazine in the Fifties and Sixties, centred […]
In the early days of South African music, many stars sold their rights to record companies for a flat fee. Today they say they were exploited and are looking for compensation. Glynis O’Hara investigates A recent visit to South Africa by The Manhattan Brothers’ Joe Mogotsi has brought an old music industry issue to the […]
Madeleine Roux: Moveable Feast In our part of the Klein Karoo, called the Koo Valley (yes, like the tin of jam), fruit is often so plentiful you can’t give it away. Comes the apricot season, new residents to the town delight in paying a rand or two for a bagful. Two weeks later crates of […]
No, they have not arrived. This is an integrated class A 40 watt per channel stereo amplifier, and it comes, not from Mars, but from Panfield’s Andrew Meintjies. Meintjies, a photographer, camera-builder, and “Renaissance techno-geek”, makes the amps by hand. Their form-follows-function design is unique: the aluminium casing – available in 10 different colours – […]
Francis Murape Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe’s recent land offer to ex-combatants may be a little too late. The liberation war veterans’ protests have assumed, not only anti- corruption, but anti-government overtones as well. About 500 of the former fighters, demanding payments from the corruption-riddled War Victims Compensation Fund, on Monday drowned Mugabe’s speech at the […]
clean? Charlene Smith Rallies and meetings held by Roelf Meyer’s New Movement Process (NMP) and Bantu Holomisa’s National Consultative Forum (NCF) are enthusiastically attended, whether in Karoo villages, urban centres or townships. And National Party members are continuing to drift to Meyer. But how clean are the alliances Meyer and Holomisa have been prepared to […]
Charlene Smith South African unskilled labour is pricing itself out of the market, and while professional and technical staff in Gauteng earn less than the global norm, industries that could create jobs will simply not come to the region because of high wages. “Labour is simply too expensive,” conceded Jabu Moleketi, Gauteng Minister of Economic […]
A US businessman is trying to broker a deal in Angola in a bid for profit and peace, reports Chris Gordon Maurice Tempelsman has the ear of presidents, American and Angolan, as well as the Unita leader. Now the president of Lazare Kaplan International (LKI), who was Jackie Onassis’s partner for the last 15 years […]
FRIDAY, 12.30PM: SPRINGBOK rugby coach Carel du Plessis is likely to retain his job until the end of the year. No decision was taken on his future in the coaches meeting called by SA Rugby Football Union president Louis Luyt at Ellis Park on Thursday, but the plans set in motion reinforced his position. The […]
Gaye Davis Rape may be re-defined to include forced anal intercourse involving both male and female victims if a call this week by the Western Cape Attorney General, Frank Kahn, for new legislation is heeded. As a common-law offence, the definition of rape centres on the penetration, against her will, of a woman’s vagina by […]
Brenda Atkinson: Cultural Sushi Last Sunday’s fundraising auction at the Goodman Gallery in Johannesburg was not, as one audience member was heard to whisper, “anything like Sotheby’s”. Technical hitches led to a late start; Albie Sachs had to deliver the opening address because hype guru Dali Tambo was “running on African time”; and jazz maestro […]
Foreign traders flocked to South Africa in the hope of making their fortunes, but have found crime instead, reports Anna Georgiou From Timbuktu to Tripoli, traders from across Africa have flocked to South Africa to strike gold and have been met with hostility by locals. Saturday business at the Market Theatre flea market in Johannesburg […]
FRIDAY, 12.30PM: OLYMPICS and World Championships athletes Penny Heyns, Llewellyn Herbert and Marius Corbert will lead the 144-strong South African Students Sports Union (Sassu) team to compete in the World Student Games in Sicily, Italy starting on Tuesday. The team has nine teams including footballers, swimmers and athletes. Meanwhile, Olympic silver medallist Hezekiel Sepeng might […]
Janet Smith SABC radio and broadcasting and entertainment industry leader, Primedia, have done a fair swop of Jeremy Thorpe and Chris Gibbons, two of South Africa’s strongest newsmen. Thorpe, a former TV news chief executive producer who left the SABC this year after an internal battle over the decision to end the wire services of […]
Marion Edmunds The director general of the public service department, Paseko Ncholo, believes South Africa’s R74-billion public sector wage bill is a political ” hot potato” that Cabinet needs to address through “political decisions”. Speaking at a briefing in Parliament, Ncholo denied knowing anything about government plans to prune the country’s empire of 1,2-million public […]
PHOENIX SUSPECT ARRESTED POLICE have arrested a suspect beleived to be the Phoenix Starangler, who has raped and murdered at least 19 women in Phoenix near Durban. The suspect was arrested during a raid on a shack in the Besters shantytown near Phoenix. The suspect, a Zulu-speaking man between the ages of 30 and 40 […]