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 […]
IF you include his comedy In the Bleak Midwinter and his appearance as Iago to Laurence Fishburne’s Othello, Hamlet is Kenneth Branagh’s fifth screen engagement with Shakespeare, and it is by some way the best film he has directed. Conceived on an epic scale, it is shot in 70mm, uses the full four-hour text and […]
Ferial Haffajee THE SABC’s head of radio, Govin Reddy, is set to be appointed as deputy chief executive of the corporation, making him second only to the chief executive, Zwelakhe Sisulu. The move is part of a wide-ranging management shake-up at the SABC which burst into the open this week with a spate of senior […]
Dan Wylie TESTING THE EDGE by Mark Swift (Snailpress, R35) MANY of the poems in Mark Swift’s muscular fourth collection “home in on exile”. Divided between the landscapes of the Eastern Cape and the British Isles, Swift struggles to find a “home where the heart is”, within himself, within the process of travelling itself: “We […]
Journalists once learnt the trade on the job without the dubious assistance of technology or journalism schools, writes Gabriel Garca Mrquez SOME 50 years ago, there were no schools of journalism. One learnt the trade in the newsroom, in the print shops, in the local caf and in Friday-night hangouts. The entire newspaper was a […]
David Sharrock A CAPE game reserve will play host this weekend to Northern Ireland’s main politicians in a peace conference just days before talks on the province’s future resume in Belfast. David Trimble, the Ulster Unionist leader, Sinn Fein negotiator Martin McGuinness, and Peter Robinson, deputy leader of the Democratic Unionists, are all understood to […]
Madeleine Wackernagel highlights some of the issues raised at the World Economic Forum AT the February meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, President Nelson Mandela made an impassioned plea for a renewed fight against Aids. His address made world headlines, but back home the “new struggle” has been sidelined by the Sarafina […]
Physicists claim to have invented a meltdown-free nuclear reactor that burns radioactive waste, writes Robin McKie in Geneva SCIENTISTS have designed a nuclear reactor that they say can “burn” atomic waste. The breakthrough could solve the world’s nuclear waste crisis and save the beleaguered atomic energy industry. Experiments carried out for two years at Cern, […]
ANDY WARHOL once advised that you should always carry two drinks with you at cocktail parties. That way, if you run into someone icky, you can excuse yourself by saying you have to take a drink to your friend. The snack affair after the Edgars Club/Boss Models Fashion Model of the Year Award last Friday […]
Hazel Friedman MUSIC might be the food of love, but it can also provide essential nutrients for economic growth. This is the message from the general manager of Ausmusic, Sue Gillard, a speaker at an international conference on the economic benefits of arts and culture in South Africa, to be held in Grahamstown, from June […]
Stewart Nkosi THE only reason I sat through Jump the Gun is because I had invited a companion along and it really would have been rude of me to yank her off the seat and walk out. I did ask her whether she would mind leaving, but she wanted to see all of it. So […]
FRIDAY, 5.30PM THE Congress of SA Trade Unions announced on Friday it is to stage a 24-hour national strike on Monday in protest at the lack of progress in negotiations on sections of the new Basic Conditions of Employment Act in the National Economic Development and Labour Council (Nedlac). Cosatu representative Nowethu Mpati on Friday […]
ZAKES MDA has won this year’s R50 000 M-Net Book Prize in the English category for his novel Ways of Dying (Oxford University Press). Karel Schoeman won in the Afrikaans category for his novel Verkenning (Human &Rousseau), and Ncedile Saule took the laurels in the Nguni category for Ukhozi Olumaphiko (Via Afrika), while Ruth Phasha […]
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 […]
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. […]