certificates Justin Arenstein THE Northern Province government is investigating allegations that mortuary staff have been taking bribes to change death certificates, and to channel business to specific funeral companies. The provincial health department’s director general, Dr Nicholas Crisp, said this week the investigation is focused on the Pietersburg police forensic mortuary. His colleagues in the […]
While the president dithers over the shortlist of IBA councillors, the IBA old guard continues to run the show. JACQUIE GOLDING-DUFFY reports PRESIDENT Nelson Mandela’s reluctance to approve the appointment of a new Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA) council threatens to derail some of the regulator`s activities. The list of five new councillors, nominated following public […]
As both Unita and the Angolan government begin to redeploy their troops, US diplomats are desperately trying to save the Lusaka Peace Accord, reports Chris Gordon AS evidence emerges of massive Unita military duplicity in Angola and the government in Luanda mobilises for full- scale war, frenetic diplomatic activities are under way to try to […]
Now that the lights have been turned off and the circus has left town, it’s time to take a stone-cold sober look at the 1997 Standard Bank 1997 Standard Bank National Arts Festival. What went down in G’town … Gwen Ansell AFRICAN music started to look like hot property at the Grahamstown Festival – but […]
Speaking at Wits university at the weekend, Kenyan writer Ngugi wa Thiong’o examined the role of intellectuals and European languages in African development AN intellectual is a worker in ideas, with words as the primary means of production. Ideas are constructed in specific languages, and if we believe that ideas are important in development, in […]
Fencing may have originated with the European aristocracy, but now it is flourishing in Mamelodi township FENCING: Julian Drew NOT so many years ago no black man without the speed of Hezekiel Sepeng would have ventured on to the Pretoria University campus inquiring whether he could join in with the sporting activities. A slower individual […]
FRIDAY, 5.00PM THE Mpumalanga auditor-general’s office has completed its management report on its investigation into alleged irregularities surrounding the Mpumalanga Rural Housing Project. Provincial deputy auditor-general Bertie Loots said the report will be handed to acting housing director general Neville Karsen on Friday. Loots refused to reveal the contents of the report, saying only that […]
Fierce debate is raging in the US over the pros and cons of globalisation as Clinton seeks to widen free trade areas, reports Mark Tran in Washington PRESIDENT Bill Clinton had to fight hard to win congressional passage of the North American Free Trade Arrangement (Nafta) three years ago as opponents of the trade pact […]
empowerment fronts’ Black security companies have won contracts amid claims of being fronts for white firms, reports Ann Eveleth RAILWAYS parastatal Spoornet is handing a huge slice of lucrative security work to a company linked to contracts currently under investigation by the Office for Serious Economic Offences (Oseo). Spoornet, a subsidiary of Transnet, said this […]
PRESIDENT Nelson Mandela chose to speak at the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies during his brief visit last week to the United Kingdom in order to make good his debt to religious leaders who had contributed to the struggle against apartheid.
Five years on, New York State police have not found the killer of a South African university student, writes his brother, Phil Molefe THE world media descended on Cape Town like vultures last week to cover the amnesty hearing of slain American Fulbright scholar Amy Biehl. By contrast, nothing has ever been said in America […]
It doesn’t take a scientist to see the All Blacks have a winning formula, from administrators to players. Pity the South Africans can’t copy it RUGBY:Steve Morris THE past few weeks have not been a hugely successful period for South African rugby, either from the playing perspective or viewing the storms of discontent sweeping through […]
Hazel Friedman `LIFE should not be cheap and love ain’t for free.” This is one of the messages behind the Lovers Plus commercial on SABC, South Africa’s first branded condom television ad. Filmed and produced in South Africa and flighted during prime time on SABC1 and 2 since June 23, the ad is the brainchild […]
Muting the instruments Previous Grahamstown jazz festivals have usually been followed by one South African musician or another sounding off to the press. In the past, artists have had gripes about pay, conditions and programming. This year, you heard none of that; we can guarantee it. But the post-festival silence doesn’t mean that everything in […]
SOCCER: Andrew Muchineripi JUST one month after the leg-weary footballers of South Africa were given a long-overdue break, the call to action has been sounded for the annual Iwisa Charity Spectacular at FNB Stadium on Saturday. Title holders Kaizer Chiefs face Sundowns in the first semi-final at 10am, followed by Orlando Pirates and Moroka Swallows […]
The intricate workings of the brain require a neurotransmitter called serotonin to function properly – too little leads to depression, too much causes unreal feelings of bliss Laura Grant DEPRESSION has been called the common cold of emotional life and Prozac, with worldwide sales of more than $2-billion and popped down the gullets of an […]
Muslim and Jewish leaders are united in their interpretation of this week’s petrol bombing in the Cape, report Rehana Rossouw and Gustav Thiel THE petrol-bomb attack on a Cape Jewish centre succeeded this week in uniting local Muslim and Jewish leaders in the belief that the culprits used a bizarre incident in Israel as a […]
Government ministries have to develop a comprehensive jobs plan in time for the October summit, reports Madeleine Wackernagel WHILE the furore over the Basic Conditions of Employment Bill continues unabated, the Minister of Labour Tito Mboweni will have his hands full in the next two months with an additional task: overseeing the development of a […]
FRIDAY, 10.25AM: THE Springboks will tackle New Zealand in the Tri-nations rugby match at Ellis Park stadium on Saturday. South Africa has won only three of the 10 matches they have played against the All Blacks since their readmision into international rugby in 1992. “That factor is playing more on the minds of the experienced […]
ON any scorecard of the death sentence, the late Judge B O’Donovan handed down more death sentences than any of his colleagues. In a three-year period he sent 25 prisoners to be hanged, and in his career he handed down 39 death sentences. On the other hand, one judge, NM McArthur, never sent a single […]
close Gustav Thiel GROOTE SCHUUR Hospital’s famed heart transplant unit could close down within months if government and private funding continue to dry up. Its existence is endangered because the cardio-thoracic unit, of which it forms a part, is under the financial whip. The government is concentrating on primary health care, and discussions about wider […]
listening The wind-up radio is finally available in SA after being produced for export only, reports Madeleine Wackernagel THE story of the wind-up radio is one of ironies. It took a South African company to realise its potential after its British inventor had no luck selling his idea in the rest of the world, but […]
FRIDAY, 10.50AM: The four rebel rugby unions who opposed the new Super-12 system accepted it on Thursday, ending the crisis in the competition. SA Rugby Football Union president Louis Luyt met the four unions’ presidents — Keith Parkinson of Natal, Harold Verster of Free State, Hentie Serfontein of Northern Transvaal and Ronnie Masson of Western […]
FRIDAY, 12.30PM FORMER British MP Emma Nicholson, who has been sheltering Katiza Cebekhulu, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela’s kidnapping co-accused who was abducted and carried to Zambia to prevent him testifying against Madikizela-Mandela, said this week in London that she is to travel to SA in September and offered an interview to the truth commission. Nicholson, who has […]
FRIDAY, 3.30PM The editor of the Kinshasa daily newspaper La Reference Plus has been interrogated by authorities in the Democratic Republic of Congo after the paper reported splits within the new regime. Andre Ipakala was released on Thursday, one day after being detained. He said he underwent a lengthy interrogation over the report on an […]
FRIDAY, 8.30AM THE National Party lost control of Pretoria City Council — once the party’s bastion — when 10 councillors including former mayors Nico Stofberg and Piet Olivier resigned from the party on Thursday. The 10 said they will join Roelf Meyer’s New Movement Process, as they “have now finally come to the conclusion that […]
A new generation of central bankers, unfamiliar with the perils of high inflation, could prompt a new rush for the security of gold if the present obsession with paper money turns sour, warns Dan Atkinson in London THE scramble out of gold by the world’s central banks is not novel. We have sat through this […]
THESE considerately crafted little numbers come from Waldeck Studios – a 3-D design company founded by artist Ian Waldeck. The company designs and crafts anything from sculptural objects to architectural components, to the odd pair of handcuffs. These particular toys were commissioned, says Waldeck, by a friend in engineering, who asked him to assemble something […]
Journalists in Somalia have to be wary … before publishing by photocopier. ALEX BELLOS reports from Mogadishu THE press in Britain is often referred to as the fourth estate. In Somalia – where uniquely there has been no government for six years – it is definitely the first. Mogadishu is an unlikely place to have […]
ATHLETICS:Julian Drew FOR Frits Potgieter it was never a matter of if but rather when he would break into the big time – and that moment arrived somewhat unceremoniously at a low key athletics meeting in Sheffield, England on Tuesday night. Potgieter added more than two metres to his previous personal best of 61.98m in […]
FRIDAY, 8.00AM DEPUTY PRESIDENT Thabo Mbeki called on Johannesburg to become a “truly African city” on Thursday when he launched a R2 billionrevitalisation plan called “Masakhane”, aimed at reversing urban decline and the flight of business from the inner city. Mbeki said the renewal strategy for southern Africa’s largest city should “shift resources from the […]
THE United States helped train the troops who spearheaded the overthrow of Mobutu Seso Seko. US defence and state department officials revealed this week that crack US troops had begun training the Rwandan army in 1994 – just after the rebellion which led to the ascent of that country’s Tutsi-dominated government. The Rwandan army went […]