FRIDAY, 10.30AM BUSINESS confidence took a knock in May following the slowdown in gross domestic product growth in the first quarter. The SA Chamber of Business business confidence index fell 0,2 percentage points to 113,8 last month, its first drop following four consecutive months of increases. Sacob economic policy director Ben van Rensburg said Sacob […]
Anthony Egan SOUTH AFRICA’S RADICAL TRADITION: A DOCUMENTARY HISTORY. VOLUME ONE:1907-1950; VOLUME TWO: 1943-1964 edited by Allison Drew ( Buchu/Mayibuye /UCT Press, R79,99) TWENTIETH-CENTURY South African liberation movements owe a considerable debt to the radical left. The left has played a giant part in supporting – at times leading -the struggle for a non-racial democracy. […]
FRIDAY, 11.30AM RANDGOLD Resources, the offshore arm of Randgold & Exploration, is to raise between $120-million and $160-million when it lists on the London Stock Exchange later this month to fund gold expansion projects. Following research on the listing by a consortium of banks, 7-million new shares in Randgold Resources will be offered at a […]
salary raises Justin Arenstein JUDGE Willem Heath, head of South Africa’s most powerful investigation unit, slammed former Transkei military leader Bantu Holomisa this week for questioning the motives of his probe into possible irregular salary increases just before the 1994 elections. Holomisa said two weeks ago that the unit was conducting a malicious and unsubstantiated […]
Andrew Worsdale JONATHAN PATON, son of the writer Alan Paton, is unhappy with aspects of a television series about his father. The Principal, the story of the author’s years as a warden at Diepkloof Reformatory, is currently airing on SABC. And Paton junior has also received retractions from the Mail & Guardian and the Sunday […]
hotel Chris McGreal in Kinshasa BREAKFASTS will never be the same at Kinshasa’s Intercontinental hotel. First the rebels’ arrival heralded the end of the almond croissants. Then came the business with the grenade. Just about the only person not disturbed by the little metal ball clattering on to the tiled floor and wandering its way […]
ELISA PACHO has seven children, one of whom is adopted. Her husband David Pacho was a crew leader at Vaal Reefs. According to the NUM records, his older wife Irene Pacho has three children. Elisa Pacho lives in Maxixi, about three hours’ drive north of Maputo. Not all the children attend school; a financial squeeze […]
Toil and trouble in the cauldron of the University of the North. Ann Eveleth reports on the issues UNIVERSITY of the North students returned to classes last week after a three-week boycott over an issue directly affecting about 300 of the 14 500 students. But a tangled web of conflicting views over transformation remains – […]
South Africa’s leprosy hospital, which dates from the Victorian era, will close next month, writes Dawn Blalock MONICA MAZIBUKO, a beautiful young woman with a shy smile, sits knitting in a patch of sunshine next to her hospital bed. Though she doesn’t appear sick, decades ago she would have been a virtual prisoner in this […]
Since his heroic role in the World Cup triumph Chester Williams has been plagued by injury, but he is determined to come back RUGBY: Mick Cleary CHESTER WILLIAMS arrived with a smile on his face. It’s a well-rehearsed facade, the image which greeted thousands of visitors to the 1995 World Cup in South Africa. Chester […]
Stephen Gray VOICES by Dacia Maraini (Serpent’s Tail, R86) ONE of Italy’s more famous women writers, Dacia Maraini, has now produced this little shocker, Voices, which appears in an English translation three years after it became a Euroseller. Maraini is known in South Africa, for the fine feminist works, The Silent Duchess and Isolina. Although […]
Mick Cleary THE 1997 British Lions could not be further removed from their celebrated battling ancestors. The game has moved on and the Lions are hell-bent on moving with it. While it’s true that the Lions need to have more edge and tightness in their forward play, their primary concern as they swing towards the […]
MALU VAN LEEUWEN arrived at the INXS concert in Cape Town a sceptic. She left the stadium a fan WHEN Michael Hutchence eases into the VIP hospitality area for the media “meet and greet” he’s powdered from temple to toe: Abba-blue eyeshadow, baby-blue checked flares, royal-blue buckled dandy shoes. So, Michael, how much easy listening […]
GLYNISO’HARA speaks to veteran songbird and survivor Tandie Klaasen about the release of her new CD IT’S been years – 24 years, in fact – since Tandie Klaasen’s face was set on fire in a senseless attack. “So don’t call me burnt face,” she says now, “just call me Tandie.” People still remark on it, […]
FRIDAY, 11.30AM BUSINESS SA, in a meeting with Labour Minister Tito Mboweni on Thursday, suggested that negotiations on the Basic Conditions of Employment Bill in the National Economic, Development and Labour Council be postponed until after October’s presidential jobs summit. The suggestion comes as BSA tries to break a deadlock between business and the Congress […]
Gwen Ansell THIS year’s Kora All-African Music Awards nominations again raise uncomfortable questions about how the industry in South Africa defines African popular music – and maybe how the world outside sees our scene. At last year’s major glitzfest, South Africa was represented by, among others, Lucky Dube, who was fted by the South African […]
FRIDAY, 11.00AM: AFRICAN WANDERERS and Santos have made it through into next season’s Castle Premier League. The two first division teams lead the log in the national play-offs and are ensured protion status. Santos have five points, and Wanderers have seven, while Black Leopards and Tembisa Classic have no hopes at all — Leopards have […]
Janet Suzman’s production of The Cherry Orchard, featuring an SA cast, is a huge critical success in Britain. HAZEL FRIEDMAN reports IT is firmly rooted in South African soil. But Janet Suzman’s production of Anton Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard has received rave reviews after it opened last weekend in Britain. The production – the Russian […]
grips with distance learning in SA Mail & Guardian Reporter IT takes a special sort of student to survive the rigours of distance learning. There’s no spoon-feeding here, no personal support: one survives or fails on one’s own. “For most of us, distance learning is an adjunct, a supplement, to what we get face to […]
Richard Saunders FOLLOWING the controversy over the unsuccessful attempt to introduce a social clause to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) structure last year, new options for guaranteeing worldwide minimum labour standards are being set by opponents of the clause. The latest initiatives are led by the International Labour Organisation (ILO), whose members met in Geneva […]
A victory against Zambia on Sunday will go a long way towards sending Bafana Bafana to t he World Cup in France, but nothing is certain in the unpredictable Group Three SOCCER : Andrew Muchineripi THE moment of truth for World Cup hopefuls South Africa and Zambia arrives on Sunday when they clash at FNB […]
FRIDAY, 4.30PM AMID opposition cries of fraud, early results show that pro-government parties won Algeria’s first parliamentary elections since the start of an Islamic insurgency after the last election’s results were annulled five years ago. President Liamine Zeroual’s National Democratic Rally won 155 of the National Assembly’s 380 seats, while the pro-government National Liberation Front […]
Analysts believe the new shareholding structure is a blow for black economic empowerment at JCI, reports Madeleine Wackernagel THE country’s biggest black economic empowerment initiative is turning sour, say industry analysts. The confusion surrounding JCI’s new shareholding structure is a deliberate attempt at masking the fact that real control of JCI is still largely in […]
The Northern Province is witnessing an extraordinary fight between two of it’s provincial officials, writes Marion Edmonds TWO senior ANC officebearers in the Northern Province are publicly trading accusations over alleged irregularities linked to the Semenya investigation into corruption in the province. The speaker of the provincial legislature, Robert Mathavi, claims the finance MEC, Edgar […]
Maria McCloy THE standard of this year’s Loerie Awards was higher than in previous years, and the competition stiffer. But the advertising industry is still struggling to relate meaningfully to a multi-cultural society. This is the view of several judges and competitors at South Africa’s most prestigious advertising awards extravaganza. Held with customary pomp at […]
FRIDAY, 4.00PM A NIGERIAN general on Friday denied that Monday’s failed attack on focres of the Sierra Leone junta by Nigerian-led Ecomog peacekeeping forces was part of an OAU-mandated operation to oust the coup leaders. General Victor Malu, who has been called back from Sierra Leone’s capital Freetown to Nigeria for consultations with military strongman […]
dad Stuart Hess WHEN Michael Wagenstroom senior was buried this week, just a handful of family and friends went to his funeral. The events leading up to his death, however, have shocked the Manenberg community on the Cape Flats. The tale of Wagenstroom’s final days has also prompted an investigation by the police’s Independent Complaints […]
Anthony Kunda in Lusaka A witness this week told the Zambian Supreme Court that presidential security personnel threatened to shoot her if she told anyone she had known President Frederick Chiluba by a different name 30 years ago. Anna Chilekwa, a 52-year-old widow, told the court she was driven from Lusaka to Luanshya by Simon […]
THE decision by the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) to clear the way for a Nigerian military invasion of Sierra Leone is like seconding the Mafia to raid dope smokers at a high school. Nigeria’s corrupt and brutal military regime has had an enormous destabilising role in West Africa. Ordinary Liberians and Sierra Leoneans blame […]
FRIDAY, 4.30PM JUDGE Robert Nugent, presiding over the “Shell House” inquest into the deaths of 19 Inkatha Freedom Party protesters during an anti-election march in central Johannesburg in March 1994, on Friday refused to subpoena the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to divulge details of an amnesty application by African National Congress security guard Neo Potsane. […]
Grant funding will help to safeguard the flora of Table Mountain while also benefiting the community, writes Aspasia Karras THE Cape Floral Kingdom project, which aims to establish a single national park of 30 000ha on the Cape Peninsula and Table Mountain, is a prime example of the new approach the World Bank is taking […]
Claudia Braude CUTTING THROUGH THE MOUNTAIN: INTERVIEWS WITH SOUTH AFRICAN JEWISH ACTIVISTS edited by Immanuel Suttner (Viking, R150) REVIEWS of Cutting Through the Mountain, a book of wide-ranging interviews with South African Jewish activists who contributed to the struggle against apartheid, have covered obvious questions: what is a Jew, what inclusion criteria were used, what’s […]