MONDAY, 4.30PM THE Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearing in Pietersburg in the Northern Province on Monday heard a former security policeman tell how six Umkhonto we Sizwe members were killed in an ambush near the Botswana border in 1987. Mathews Sehlwana, 43, said his task as member of the security police was to gather information […]
MONDAY, 11.15AM: LEONARD CHEUNE retained the presidency of Athletics South Africa (ASA) at the national body’s annual meeting at Esselen Park on Saturday. This was after the Western Province Athletics boss, Alex Marshall, withdrew his nomination for president and vice-president, leaving Cheune unopposed for the top position. The Gauteng North chairman, Stix Stiglingh, won the […]
MONDAY, 9.00AM: SOUTH African rugby has hit a crisis of confidence with Saturday’s 18-15 defeat of the Springboks to the touring British Lions. Despite an inspired performance, the Boks lost the game and, with it, the series because of the lack of a consistent goal kicker. Meanwhile, flanker Ruben Kruger is ruled out of further […]
MONDAY, 10.30AM SOUTH Africa may acquire two Ukrainian-built floating hotels for use as prison boats, following a personal inspection of the vessels by Correctional Services Minister Sipo Mzimela. The vessels will cost about R5-million each, with afurther R2-million required to transport them to SA and an additional R40-million to convert them into prisons, making them […]
BIG FREEZE TEMPERATURES plummeted across the country overnight as a new cold front swept inland, with daytime temperatures not expected to top 12 degrees C. Snow is falling in the Western Cape mountains and in Lesotho and the eastern Free State. Meanwhile, President Nelson Mandela and Welfare Minister Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi will on Monday visit flood-hit […]
MONDAY, 10.15AM: SOUTH AFRICAN golfer Retief Goosen set a new record and stormed his way to a win at the French Open golf tournament in Paris on Sunday. Despite heavy rain falling over the weekend, Goosen finished with a 17-under-par 271. Jamie Spence came out of nowhere to take second place, and a disappointed Martin […]
MONDAY, 11.00AM THE Central Statistical Service said at the weekend that the SA economy lost 71 000 jobs last year in the non-agricultural formal sector, in a blow to government’s hopes of creating 126 000 jobs. Government’s growth, employment and redistribution strategy (Gear) projected 126 000 jobs would be created last year, with a further […]
THURSDAY, 5.30PM THE Congress of SA Trade Unions on Thursday released its diary of strikes to push it demands for changes to the Basic Conditions of Employment Bill. Cosatu secretary general Sam Shilowa told a press conference that the union federation will call a national strike between the hours of 10am and 11am on Monday […]
FRIDAY, 8.30AM AN Olympic bid assessment team, appointed to examine the socio-economic and environmental impact of the Games in Cape Town, has accused the Development Bank of over-optimistic predictions. The Development Bank’s macro-economic predictions on job creation and revenue inflow played a key role in bringing Cabinet support to the bid, and were prominently used […]
Despite criticism of Gear, the strategy is on target and the country should tough it out, Maria Ramos tells Madeleine Wackernagel DIRECTOR General of Finance Maria Ramos believes Gear is right on track. “Well she would, wouldn’t she,” was one cynical response, but to hear her tell it, the government’s growth, employment and redistribution strategy […]
FRIDAY, 8.30AM EXPORTS rose sharply in May to R12,32 billion, up from R10,57 billion in April, helping to push the trade balance up by almost a billion rand to R1,7 billion. Economists, who had been hoping that the trade balance would reach R1 billion, were delighted. The cumulative trade balance from January to May is […]
Ferial Haffajee JUST before dawn on August 1, Kaya FM will take to Gauteng’s airwaves and promises to tackle the contested radio terrain head-on. This station wants to be the voice and preferred listening zone of black economic empowerment. “We’re not a Metro or a five,” says Kaya’s managing director Pat Dambe, referring to its […]
COMMUNITY radio broadcasting is battling to keep its head above water. The bulk of community radio stations operate at a loss, with sky-high debt; staff lack financial training; and infighting and power struggles further undercut the stations’ potential for growth. This is according to a detailed industry review of community radio compiled by the monitoring […]
Gustav Thiel In the face of strong opposition from old Transvaalers, Afrikaner leaders met behind closed doors this month to reconsider a plan to launch an organisation to protect their language. The who’s who of Afrikaner intellect and business had thrown their considerable weight behind the initiative, and agreed at their first public meeting in […]
GWEN ANSELL took some top SA jazzmen to watch Kansas City THE first jazz shot in Robert Altman’s Kansas City is of James Carter, natty in a sharp suit, legs crossed insouciantly, sax gleaming, wreathed in cigarette smoke, looking for all the world like a Herman Leonard photograph come to life. Visually, the whole movie […]
Claudia McElroy in Monrovia MONROVIA’S shantytown of Westport, one of the poorest and most congested areas in Liberia’s capital, has suddenly become the scene of some excitement. Braving monsoon rains, bemused residents throng the narrow streets to witness the unusual spectacle of a 14-car motorcade in which presidential candidate Ellen Johnson- Sirleaf and her entourage […]
millions Mukoni T Ratshitanga A PHONECARD scam, thought to have been pioneered by engineering students, has prompted Telkom to launch a surveillance operation on university and technikon campuses across the country. The operator said it had lost R1-million in one week alone this month – when it discovered the fraud – and suspects a syndicate […]
Gustav Thiel ARMS manufacturer Armscor sold bulletproof vests to the police, army and the prisons service – ignoring concerns that they were sub-standard. The vests were produced for Armscor by a now-defunct firm. Johannesburg-based Ballistic Body Armour, which supplies body armour, said this week that the vests “could endanger the lives of people who wear […]
FRIDAY, 2.00PM HIGH Court Judge Edwin Cameron has ruled that Mineral and Energy Affairs Minister Penuell Maduna flouted basic legal rights when he fired the CEO of the Diamond Board. In overturning Maduna’s dismissal of Gerhard Bindeman, who had been CEO of the board since 1989, Cameron found the minister to have acted in breach […]
FRIDAY, 2.30PM THE South African government will officially raise Thursday’s arrest of Congo opposition leader Etienne Tshisekedi with President Laurent Kabila, as part of its efforst to assist in the country’s road to democracy, Presidential aide Parks Mankahlana said on Friday. “There’s no reason to be hysterical about this incident,” Mankahlana said. Meanwhile, the National […]
PETER MAKURUBE meets West African music man and griot Adama Drame, who is visiting South Africa with his troupe of singers and drummers WHEN he was born he joined a long line of great musical tradition – the Djeli griots (musicians) had been at it for six generations. Adama Drame was totally immersed in the […]
Instead of pointing to inflexible labour markets as the cause of South Africa’s unemployment problems, the Reserve Bank should look to its own policies, reports Charles Millward TWO remarkable events connected to the Reserve Bank took place last week. First, Gencor announced that it would transfer (with the permission of the bank) the greater part […]
Government is increasingly turning to business to help kick-start delivery, reports Marion Edmunds THE high-profile appointment of South African Breweries chief executive, Meyer Kahn, to the police service is just one example of a growing trend in government to rely on private-sector management skills to kick-start delivery. The departments of justice, welfare, safety and security […]
The 1997 World Bank Development Report argues that states need strong institutions to meet people’s needs effectively, reports Madeleine Wackernagel THE World Bank is not known for advocating intervention – thus, its World Development Report 1997, released this week, which takes the role of the state as its theme, could be seen as something of […]
Lesotho’s leaders play at politics, civil servants sit disconsolate in bars and a blanket of despondency AT Sparrows and at the Lancers Inn, two popular downtown bars where civil servants and the sundry elite of Maseru gather every evening to down beer and gossip, they talk of Lesotho as a land of “political wonders”. They […]
FRIDAY, 11.00AM BLACK-controlled investment group the National Empowerment Corporation and asset management company Coronation Holdings on Thursday announced they have joined forces in a new investment company, African Harvest Holdings, which starts life off a R1-billion capital base, including R800-million in cash. African Harvest will be created through a R1,25-billion rights offer of Coronation N-shares, […]
weather The bandit weather system El Ni —o is so unpredictable that scientists can’t predict whether it’s even going to happen, writes Julia Grey YOU can rely on the sun to rise, and the seasons to tick over predictably, but in some cases, nature is not so straightforward. It’s even possible that the breath of […]
The Heath special investigative unit turned its microscope on Mpumalanga this week, reports Justin Arenstein THE tribulations of Mpuma-langa’s disgraced former MEC for safety and security, Steve Mabona, may just be starting after South Africa’s most powerful investigative unit this week started probing his financial management of state funds over the past seven years. Mabona […]
FRIDAY, 4.00PM THE Atomic Energy Corporation’s nuclear waste storage facility at Vaalputs in the Northern Cape has leaked radioactivity following the appearance of hairline cracks in concrete blocks containing spent fuel from the Koeberg nuclear reactor outside Cape Town. AEC head of nuclear waste management Brian Hamilton-Jones attributed the cracks to unusually cold and wet […]
South Africa is taking the credit for the decision to relax the ban on the international ivory trade, but animal rights groups are outraged, reports Eddie Koch THIS week’s landmark decision by the Convention on Trade in Endangered Species (Cites) to relax its ban on the international ivory trade is a diplomatic coup for Deputy […]
elephants When the rejoicing dies down, it will be time for the Cites signatories who supported the ivory downlisting to prevent a new wave of elephant slaughter, writes Eddie Koch THE South African government, along with those of Cites’s 138 member nations who voted to allow Zimbabwe, Botswana and Namibia to renew limited trade in […]
David Harrison THIRTY-FIVE thousand Ugandans from the Kibale forest region had not heard of the 1992 Earth Summit when they were evicted by police and soldiers clearing the area for a European Union-funded project to protect the forest and encourage tourism. Local people who resisted were shot or burnt alive in their homes, women were […]