brigade A tactical error in taking on Thabo Mbeki lies behind the Gauteng premier’s decision to quit politics, write Mail & Guardian Reporters TOKYO SEXWALE decided to quit politics when avenues to advancement within the ruling African National Congress had been blocked after he was on the losing end of a power contest with Deputy […]
Chris McGreal in Kinshasa, Congo A GROWING tide of resentment against the conspicuous presence of Rwandans in President Laurent Kabila’s victorious army this week transformed a political protest into a demonstration against foreign intervention. Alliance of Democratic Forces troops broke up the protest – called against Kabila’s failure to include a leading anti-Mobutu politician in […]
FRIDAY, 12.00NOON PRIVATISATION and restructuring of the state-owned Northern Cape Diamond mine Alexkor has been suspended by the mine’s restructuring committee after it declared a dispute with government and Alexkor’s board. The committee, made up or representatives of Alexkor management, labour, community and provincial government, said the dispute arose after Public Enterprises Minister Stella Sigcau […]
A prominent member of the National Parks Board has been implicated in `canned’ lion hunting, reports Ellen Bartlett THE game reserves named in the controversial television documentary on “canned” lion hunting in South Africa are not the only places where professional hunters are willing to bend the rules to help an inexperienced – or inept […]
The balaclava-clad squad that swept through Pollsmoor is also being investigated for actions at Helderstroom jail, reports Tangeni Amupadhi MEMBERS of the prison crack squad accused of attacking and robbing 200 convicts in Cape Town’s Pollsmoor prison last week are already being investigated for assaults during a similar raid three months ago. Though the Department […]
FRIDAY, 12.30PM: The candidates for the position of Transvaal Cricket Board chief executive officer have not been made public, but an annoucement was made by the board that this will not be an affirmative action appointment. TCB president Gerald Ritchie said on Thursday: “If the person we select happens to be from one of the […]
FRIDAY, 8.30AM LATEST Central Statistics Service figures from the first quarter of 1997 show that a 34,1% slump in agriculture was the main cause of a drop in gross domestic product by an annualised 0,8% from the previous quarter The weaker than expected result has caused economists to predict that a Reserve Bank cut in […]
Jim Day THE Eastern Cape provincial government may often take flak for slow delivery, but the zeal of its clinic-builders has now produced another headache: in deep rural areas of the former Ciskei and Transkei, 20 brand-new and fully equipped clinics stand empty as the province frantically searches for nurses to operate them. A shortage […]
conditions THE Human Rights Commission plans to hold public hearings into conditions in South African prisons and will decide next week when the hearings are to begin. A commission representative, John Mojapelo, said this week that hundreds of complaints have been received from prisoners. The commission has selected more than 40 prisons in all nine […]
Hazel Friedman A RECORD price has been paid for a Pierneef painting overseas, suggesting that boom times are ahead for South African art. Entitled Transvaal Landscape (1929) the painting was sold last week by Christies in London for the whopping sum of 58 000 (R430 000). The price more than doubles the previous amount of […]
FRIDAY, 4.00PM FOUR people were arrested on Friday after police and Mpumalanga Parks Board investigators raided two Johannesburg houses and seized 45 endangered cycads stolen from nature reserves near the Swazi border. Seven of the stolen lebomboensis cycads were implanted with microchips, allowing investigators to track their movement from the Mananga cycad reserve to Johannesburg. […]
Andrew Worsdale AT the age of 73 and with 54 years in the industry, Italo Bernicchi is a veteran of South African cinema. He started in movies as a cinematographer, shooting second unit on the original version of Cry, the Beloved Country, made by Zoltan Korda. After that he put down the camera and took […]
THE freedom of the press depends on the number of newspaper titles available to the public rather than nonsensical claims to objectivity by a few newspaper groups trading in monopolistic conditions. We are therefore extremely concerned by the manner in which the closure of the New Nation has been passed off with little comment and […]
rapist appears Stuart Hess TWO thousand Katlehong people marched on the Germiston Magistrate’s Court this week when the man accused of raping a seven- year-old girl made his appearnance. Dan Mabote is charged with raping Mamokgethi Malebana and two other children, all from the Mosiliki section in Katlehong. Mamokgethi, a sub-B pupil, disappeared on March […]
Marion Edmunds THE government is to be urged to set up a special inquiry into district surgeons and health professionals who betrayed their ethical codes in complicity with apartheid authorities. The call will be made at health hearings at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission next month and will come from among the 30 organisations making […]
The IBA’s intentions are noble, argues GOVIN REDDY, but the body has not stopped to think of the disastrous impact its actions could have on the public broadcaster MUCH of recent media coverage of the Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA) has focused on its financial mismanagement, but there has been little reflection on its actual regulatory […]
`ZAMBUK. My grandmother used to put that on everything,” a friend said to me when I told her about a new TV campaign for the balm. Let’s face it, most adverts for an affordable green medicated ointment show a mother tending to her kid – not black and white images of some sexy naked woman […]
THURSDAY, 10.00AM A LOCAL consortium involved in a bid for a licence to operate a casino on the banks of the Vaal river has sold a 50% stake in the venture to a Malaysain company for R350-million. The Nokeng Consortium, made up of women’s empowerment groups Business Ventures 2000 and Khanya Women 2000, and the […]
THURSDAY, 11.30AM: MANNING RANGERS secured the Castle Premier League soccer title with their 1-0 win over Bush Bucks in Chatsworth Stadium, near Durban on Wednesday night. Rangers, who have been leading the log for weeks now, needed only one point to win the league, and the goal came in the 33rd minute from Marcus Mphafudi. […]
POLLSMOOR PROBE CORRECTIONAL Services Minister Sipo Mzimela on Thursday appointed an independent two-member board of inquiry into the recent violence at Pollsmoor prison near Cape Town. The inquiry will look into events last Friday, when nearly 200 inmates were hospitalised after being beaten with batons and pistols during a search for weapons and ammunition in […]
THURSDAY, 10.00AM: NORTH-WEST bulldozed their way through Tongan ranks in their rugby clash at Olen Park in Potchefstroom on Wednesday night, winning 46-6 in freezing cold weather. The Tongans, who have been on a winning streak against Namibia and Zimbabwe for the past two weeks, only managed to get two penalites, both by Gustavo Tonga. […]
THURSDAY, 10.30AM A PILOT project for a multimillion-rand bamboo production project has been launched at Malamulele in Northern Province. The joint venture between the Northern Province Investment Initiative and a Belgian-based company with interests in Europe and the Far East aims to establish modern bamboo farming in the province with the eventual aim the creation […]
WEDNESDAY, 12.00NOON LATEST inflation figures from the Central Statistical Service shows the consumer price index pushing double figures in April, at 9,9%, its highest since topping 10% in June 1995. April inflation showed a 0,3 percentage point increase over the 9,6% in March to give a month-on-month increase of 0,9%, seasonally adjusted to 0,6%. This […]
THURSDAY, 11.00AM: AMANDA COETZER did it again, beating Amy Frazier (USA) 7-6, 6-4 in the second round of the French Open in Paris on Wednesday. The only other South African to score a victory on Wednesday was men’s doubles player Piet Norval. Norval partnered British Neil Broad to win 6-3,6-2 over Byron Black of Zimbabwe […]
THURSDAY, 3.30PM THE Truth and Reconciliation Commission on Thursday publicly released the confidential annexure to the African National Congress’s second submission to the commission, but the names of suspected police spies were deleted to comply with an Appellate Division ruling that alleged perpetrators be given 21 days warning before being exposed. Stressing the commission’s commitment […]
THURSDAY, 12.00NOON: THE South African Rugby Football Union (Sarfu) has had to reduc the number of drug tests conducted during the British Lions tour of South Africa because of a lapse in government funding. Sarfu medical officer Dr Ismail Jakoet said Sarfu will only cut down the number of tests done. Only one player per […]
THURSDAY, 10.30AM LATEST Reserve Bank credit figures suggest a rate cut late this year, but analysts once again had to contend with mixed signals from the Bank’s statistics. Private sector credit extension increased 16,95% in the year to April, compared to 15,95% in March, somewhat higher than economists had predicted. Month-on-month private sector credit was […]
THURSDAY, 3.30PM AN African National Congress security guard on Thursday told the Shell House inquest that he heard one of his colleagues firing an AK-47 rifle at a crowd of advancing marchers after their commander gave an order to open fire. The Johannesburg High Court inquest, presided over by Judge Robert Nugent, is probing the […]
THURSDAY, 3.00PM LAURENT KABILA, self-proclaimed president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (formerly Zaire), was due to be officially inaugurated as head of state on Thursday. In terms of a 15-point constitutional decree signed by Kabila on Wednesday, he will assume full executive, legislative and military powers until a new constitution is adopted. None […]
THURSDAY, 8.00AM GAUTENG Premier Tokyo Sexwale plans to leave politics in 1999, and has informed both the president and deputy president of his decision, his office announced yesterday. No reasons were given, but Sexwale’s career in the ANC appears to have been blocked following public clashes with Thabo Mbeki last year and the nomination of […]
THURSDAY, 5.30PM FORMER Zimbabwe president Canaan Banana has been fired from his voluntary, part-time teaching post at the University of Zimbabwe in Harare. University authorities on Thursday confirmed that Banana, 61, a methodist priest and professor of religious studies, classics, and philosophy, was discharged and had already vacated his office in the arts faculty, where […]
WEDNESDAY, 3.00PM IN continuing testimony before the inquest into the deaths of 19 people during an Inkatha march in March 1994, the Johannesburg High Court on Wednesday heard that the number of staff guarding the African National Congress’s Shell House headquarters was doubled and additional firearms issued after promised police reinforcements failed to arrive. Shell […]