FRIDAY, 4.30PM NAMIBIA’S president Sam Nujoma has faced widespread criticism in Windhoek for a television speech on Wednesday night which announced a ban on all public gatherings held without permission from the police. Nujoma made the announcement after several weeks of demonstrations around the country by former guerrillas who fought for Swapo during the war […]
The Cape Town 2004 Olympic Bid’s attempts to `Africanise’ its programme may be too little, too late, argues Julian Drew DEPUTY Foreign Affairs Minister Essop Pahad has shared a vital fact with Deputy President Thabo Mbeki, a fact that has so far eluded the bid company: the first known records of organised sport are from […]
ASMAL BACKS CEASEFIRE NATIONAL Conventional Arms Control Committee chair and Water Minister Kader Asmal has agreed with the Ceasefire Campaign that the SA armaments industry is overemphasising its contribution to the economy. Ceasefire representative Heike Spiegelberg said: “The income generated by arms exports last year was a mere R900-million, which still needs to be balanced […]
FRIDAY, 11.00AM STOCKBROKER Gerrit Steenkanmp, a former director of two broking firms, on Thursday pleaded guilty before a SA Institute of Stockbrokers disciplinary inquiry of fraud involving the misappropriation of R5-million in client funds between August 1994 and April this year. The institute expelled Steenkamp from its ranks and he may now face criminal and […]
THURSDAY, 6.00PM THE Producer Price Index fell to an annual 8,4% in May, 0,4 of a percentage point lower than the figure for April, the Central Statistical Servise said on Thursday. The PPI for locally produced commodities stood at 8,9%, 0,8 of a percentage point lower than the corresponding annualised rate in April. The PPI […]
FRIDAY, 10.30AM: MICHAEL CHEESMAN on Thursday increased his overall lead by 5 min 22 sec, in the second stage of the KWV Berg river marathon. Cheesman finished second and pre-race favourite Graham Bird won the second stage. Bird, who finished ninth in the first round on Wednesday, clocked in 3:08:51 to Cheeman’s 3:08:52. Donnie Malherbe […]
FRIDAY, 1.30PM EXPLOSIVES and chemicals giant AECI has been found causally negligent in relation to the huge fire at its Somerset West sulphur stockpile on December 16 1995. The Desai commission of inquiry into the fire published its report on Thursday, in which it noted that since the stockpile’s establishment in 1967 to the time […]
Whether or not he allows political reform in Kenya, Daniel arap Moi’s days as ruler are numbered, reports Ken Opala from Nairobi PRESIDENT Daniel arap Moi’s 20-year unbroken hold on power in Kenya is under siege, and probably in its terminal phase, following waves of public protests to reform the Constitution. The key demand is […]
The falling gold price has shattered the fortunes of the South African mining industry, and the lives of hundreds of thousands who depend on mining jobs for their survival Angella Johnson THE round metal Lesotho pot was boiling nicely. Makabelo Ntaote added more cow dung and wood to the fire. She used to have a […]
Top new local band Skeem last week severed their newly formed ties with Sony Music. MARIA McCLOY and CHARL BLIGNAUT find out why WAAR WAS JY? was one of the most popular tunes of the past year. It came off Skeem’s debut album; won them a 1997 South African Music Award and established them as […]
FRIDAY, 10.00AM: MICHAU WARRIORS’ hopes of staying on for yet another year in the elite Premier Soccer League were dashed on Thursday, when the South African Football Association (Safa) appeal board dismissed Warriors’ appeal against a disciplinary commitee’s decision to award two league points to rivals AmaZulu. The disciplinary committee last month ruled that AmaZulu […]
Julia Grey SOUTH AFRICA can be counted among the top 10 countries worldwide in the field of space technology. But according to Dr Kelvin Kemm, a South African nuclear physicist, South African industry and politicians alike have a misconception of space technology as “fun and games entertainment” instead of “the absolute new frontier of profit”. […]
David Beresford NAMIBIAN security forces, acting with the encouragement of President Sam Nujoma, have been accused of responsibility for the murders and disappearance of 1 768 Angolans on its northern borders. The claim has been made by a Namibian human rights group, the National Society for Human Rights (NSHR), which has been monitoring the alleged […]
FRIDAY, 6.00PM The agreement reached on Thursday between Gauteng Democratic Party leader Peter Leon and new Johannesburg police area commissioner Isak Pretorius that all six entrances to Alexandra township will be blockaded by police and army has drawn sharp reaction from safety and security MEC Jessie Duarte. Reacting “with utter dismay and serious concern” to […]
The Standard Bank National Arts Festival, held in Grahamstown, always generates a lot of controversy and differing opinions. Here are some Suzy Bell on Trevor Makhoba DURBAN artist, Trevor Makhoba, recipient of the 1996 Standard Bank Young Artist Award for the Visual Arts, has spoken out against the Standard Bank National Arts Festival committee. “They […]
As the Australian Film Festival gets under way in Johannesburg and Cape Town, we look at the peculiarities of their cinema Howard Feinstein WHO can forget the over-the-top talking heads and flashy gestures in Baz Luhrmann’s Strictly Ballroom? The loud anti-heroine and her siblings in PJ Hogan’s Muriel’s Wedding? Or the bizarre sisters and the […]
FRIDAY, 1.30PM MURDERED People Against Gangsterism and Drugs national secretary Sharief Khan was on Thursday proclaimed the vigilante group’s second martyr at his funeral. Meanwhile, Ebrahim Satardien, the man arrested for Khan’s murder, appeared briefly in the Wynberg Magistrate’s Court on Friday for a bail application. The bail hearing was postponed to Monday and Satardien […]
FRIDAY, 10.30AM SHARES on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange leapt ahead on Thursday, using a modest recovery in the gold price as an excuse for a major rally. Industrials started the day on a gloomy note influenced by gold’s poor fortunes, but soon picked up. By close of trade, the all share index was up 0,5% […]
Andrew Worsdale THE Australian Film Festival offers a different view to the commercial movies we have come to identify with Australia. It is on at the Rosebank Mall in Johannesburg from July 11 to 16 and at Cavendish Square in Cape Town from July 17. Of the 10 features in the festival, several are must-sees: […]
Were this week’s statements of remorse by Amy Biehl’s killers pure expediency – or did they bring us closer to the truth of the past? Gaye Davis was at their amnesty hearing THE meeting, when it came, was no more than a handshake in one of the corridors leading off the low-ceilinged room high in […]
Mukoni T Ratshitanga THE Ministry of Education is backing a proposal that hundreds of thousands of university, college and technikon students be compelled to carry out community service. The South African Students’ Congress (Sasco), which first put forward the proposal, this week announced it will “vigorously push” the scheme, called “RDP Students’ Brigades”. The ministry […]
Madeleine Wackernagel THE clever mining houses have been doing it for some time – going north, that is, in search of more golden pastures. Pre-1994, South Africans were not always welcome visitors, or investors. That is all set to change as the mining crisis at home drives ever-more local companies into the rest of Africa, […]
JACQUIE GOLDING-DUFFY reports on Radio Highveld’s new advert rates SOME advertisers are outraged by the astronomical hikes in advertising rates by Radio Highveld, the radio station that was bought from the SABC for a whopping R320- million. The days when radio was a cheap medium have long gone, but with the recent increases introduced by […]
FRIDAY, 4.30PM DEPUTY Foreign Affairs Minister Aziz Pahad on Friday said that a decision on SA arms sales to Rwanda will be taken shortly. After meeting a Rwandan government delegation in Pretoria he told reporters this had been one of the issues under discussion. “We have been discussing this, but a decision will have to […]
Wonder Hlongwa THE man chosen to revive African National Congress fortunes in KwaZulu-Natal’s volatile Midlands region is sceptical about the terms of the province’s embryonic peace package. Anthony Xaba, who took over as ANC Midlands chair last week, says he is uncomfortable with various points the ANC is discussing with the Inkatha Freedom Party as […]
TURN to the Electronic Mail & Guardian books section for plenty of entertaining reviews that haven’t appeared in the print edition. This week, for example, there’s a range of biographies of film greats including Orson Welles, Federico Fellini, Steven Spielberg and many more. We’ve also improved the index system of the books section to provide […]
Gaye Davis SENIOR Human Rights Commission official Anne Routier has tendered her resignation following a blistering row with chair Barney Pityana. Routier, a National Party nominee to the commission who convenes its committee for policy and planning, and heads its Eastern Cape region, tendered her resignation with immediate effect in a letter to the secretary […]
Shirley Kossick LOVE INVENTS US by Amy Bloom (Picador, R118,00) THE American writer Amy Bloom’s fine collection of interconnecting short stories, Come to Me (1994), often read like a novel. Love Invents Us, her first novel, often seems like several short stories strung together around the central character, Elizabeth Taube. This impression is strengthened by […]
THE former editor of Private Eye, Richard Ingrams, once said memorably that a libel suit is like a game of Russian roulette, the outcome being equally unpredictable. The financial magazine, Finance Week, has recently put a gun to the Mail & Guardian’s head and pulled the trigger. We are waiting anxiously to discover whether there […]
THURSDAY, 4.00PM THE United Nations will host a pan-African forum in Addis Ababa from Friday, at which senior officials from 15 African states will meet their counterparts from 18 donor countries to discuss development issues. UN secretary-general Kofi Annan will deliver the keynote address to the forum, held under the umbrella of the Organisation of […]
THURSDAY, 10.30AM NATIONAL Sorghum Breweries chairman and CEO Mohale Mahanyele resigned his positions on Wednesday. Following a long board meeting, Mahanyele “elected to resign” because he does not want to be seen as an “impediment” to the growth of the company. He said he will join an investment company as chairman. The company said he […]
THURSDAY, 8.00AM ROELF MEYER, who on Monday announced a formal deal with Bantu Holomisa to form a joint party, may be close to making a similar deal with Tony Leon’s Democratic Party. Leon was quick this week to welcome the proposed new party, and to say that his own discussions with the two men — […]