MONDAY, 11.00AM: THE British Lions began their South African tour in style with a 39-11 win over Eastern Province XV in Port Elizabeth on Saturday, but not without a fight. The Lions played hard and fast rugby, with skilful tries in the first half four, but then EP fought back to an 11-10 lead and […]
MONDAY, 10.00AM NEW Age Baverages, the local Pepsi bottler which last week applied for voluntary liquidation after Pepsico US refused a guarantee a bank lifeline, owed creditors more than R419-million at the end of April, the Witwatersrand High Court heard on Friday. Major creditors are Standard Merchant Bank, where NAB held a R195-million overdraft, which […]
MONDAY, 11.30AM: ERNIE ELS is homing in on the leader Ian Woosnam in the Volvo PGA championships at Wentworth, North Carolina, after finishing with a 67 in the third round on Sunday. Woosnam carded 70, bringing his total to 205, and Darren Clarke kept close on his heels with a total of 206. Els is […]
A police-watchdog body is worried by the high number of deaths in detention and police custody. Tangeni Amupadhi reports. THE number of people dying at the hands of the police is increasing, according to the new police watchdog, the Independent Complaints Directorate. And even while reporting this, the directorate describes its difficulties in getting details […]
South Africa stands accused of bully-boy tactics in trade with Zimbabwe and of dominating its economy, argues Richard Saunders in Harare DESPITE words of assurance from Nelson Mandela during his state visit this week that tense business relations between South Africa and Zimbabwe would be smoothed in efforts to promote greater regional economic integration, business […]
FRIDAY, 10.30AM ONLY three consortiums, the Virgin-Bekhilanga consortium, Rethabile Comair and an unnamed consortium of Phoenix Venture Partners, Bidvest and the Women’s Investment Portfolio, remain in the race to buy parastatal Sun Air. Other preferred bidders Air France, the Sanco-Ukhozi consortium and Maru Investments have all pulled out of the bidding. It is not clear […]
FRIDAY, 12.00NOON: SA INTERNATIONAL Gerry Baker beat Constance Steyn 25-23 at the Wanderers yesterday, making it through to the semifinals to be played this weekend. Baker said after the game it was a close shave. “Some of those shots he played should have had his name engraved on the trophy. Yes, it was getting to […]
FRIDAY, 10.30AM THE Reserve Bank has mopped up about R4,8-billion which entered the money market as a result of the sale of a stake in Telkom to a US/Malaysian consortium. The Telkom sale brought about $1,2-billion into the country, prompting the Bank action to prevent a fall in interest rates. According to Reserve Bank governor […]
Ann Eveleth PRESSURE is mounting in educational circles for a re-think on timeframes for implementing the new school curriculum as funding shortages, training backlogs and staff vacancies pile up. Gauteng and Eastern Cape education officials this week called on the national government to scale down plans to put the new outcomes-based education system into effect […]
FRIDAY, 3.30PM RESIDENTS of Bushbuckridge who are agitating to have the area incorporated into Mpumalanga from Northern Province today delivered a memorandum to President Nelson Mandela notifying him of their intention to take the border dispute to court. “The people have resolved to donate R10 per family and business people from R100 and over to […]
Injuries have hit the Springboks hard and coach Carel du Plessis’s biggest problem will be the locks RUGBY:Steve Morris THERE is a foreboding feeling of desperation creeping into the deliberations of new national coach Carel du Plessis ahead of the arduous season of Test rugby which lies ahead. In the interests of our national rugby […]
Phillip Brooks in Cannes ON its 50th birthday, Cannes kept up its twin-faced reputation – an explosive mixture of intense vulgarity and creativity. Not as disorganised as Venice nor as authoritarian as Berlin, Cannes remains the world’s top film festival. So it was a landmark for South African cinema when, for the first time, there […]
It is once more time for South Africa’s most lavish fiction award – but now it’s adults only, writes SHAUN DE WAAL IN the absence of the CNA Literary Award, which was discontinued earlier this year, the M-Net Book Prize for a South African novel takes on a new importance. It always was the most […]
The ANC fears that internal debates on ethnicity will blow up into a race row if not properly managed. Marion Edmunds reports IN the run-up to an African National Congress special caucus meeting to discuss race and ethnicity this weekend, emotions are running high in the parliamentary caucus with MPs reluctant to speak openly about […]
to Africa South Africa’s attempts at diplomacy failed, but the rebels succeeded and Zaire became Congo. Africa will benefit from these developments but the West is alarmed Despite jitters in the West, Laurent Kabila’s victory is potentially the most stabilising development in Central Africa in many years. Chris McGreal reports from Kinshasa ZAIRE disappeared at […]
South African film and film-makers are finally getting the recognition – and the budget allocation – they deserve. ANDREWWORSDALE details the good news IN the mid-1980s, South Africa produced up to 80 films a year, mostly financed through devious tax evasion schemes. Most of them were tacky American Ninja dramas or Platoon ripoffs with KwaZulu-Natal […]
South Africa’s campaign against landmines is not only based on diplomatic gains, reports Stefaans Brmmer ONCE the Buffel armoured troop carrier was a hated symbol of apartheid oppression. This week a Buffel, freshly repainted white to hide its ugly military brown, took pride of place at the World Trade Centre, where delegates from 50 African […]
Chris Petit THE UNTOUCHABLE by John Banville (Picador, R118) DISSECTING English characteristics of deceit and betrayal, John Banville locates their impulse not in any grand theorising but in a peculiarly English need for amusement and a corresponding fear of boredom. In one sense, The Untouchable is about dressing up. Victor Maskell – Banville’s fictional version […]
Palme d’Or: The Taste of Cherry, by Abbas Kiarostami (Iran) and The Eel, by Shohei Imamura (Japan) 50th Anniversary Prize: Youssef Chahine, Egypt, director of The Destiny Grand Prize: The Sweet Hereafter, Atom Agoyan, Canada Best Actress: Kathy Burke in Nil by Mouth, Britain Best Actor: Sean Penn in She’s So Lovely, USA Best Director: […]
RUGBY:Mick Cleary THE British Lions who stepped off the plane last weekend are big, physical men, selected for their size, their power and their brooding intent, the mirror image of those they are about to meet across the playing fields of South Africa over the next seven weeks. But the South Africans will not be […]
Mungo Soggot PARLIAMENTARY defence committee head Tony Yengeni this week slammed the Department of Defence for keeping the committee in the dark about the controversial plan to buy four corvettes for South Africa’s navy. Yengeni’s criticism follows comments by Defence Minister Joe Modise last week that he might leapfrog a tender process for the boats […]
THE Mail & Guardian today breaks another story pointing to possible corruption in government – this time involving the Department of Housing and a R185-million housing contract. The scandal worries us on two levels. The first and obvious one is the reputation that the “new” South Africa is beginning to earn itself for administrative corruption. […]
Bongani Ndodana WITH the new policy on the arts, Dr Malan’s bust, perched in its shrine in the Nico Malan opera foyer, has witnessed the unceremonious undoing of the Cape Performing Arts Board (Capab). First it was the frantic campaign to save the orchestra, then ballet went independent under the banner of Cape Town City […]
Alex Duval Smith in Washington NINE years after Roseanne began its ground- breaking, irreverent portrayal of working- class family life, television viewers in the United States will switch on with relief tomorrow for the last episode with the family America used to love to hate. Roseanne’s ratings have plummeted in the last two seasons and […]
The issue of homosexuality tests the commitment of African states to a culture of human rights, argues Shaun de Waal HOMOSEXUALITY as a social issue – and gay and lesbian rights as a political issue – has recently arisen several times in the region, raising controversy in Zimbabwe, Namibia, Botswana and Swaziland. It seems to […]
FRIDAY, 8.30AM DEPUTY PRESIDENT Thabo Mbeki has asked both finance minister Trevor Manuel and Reserve Bank governor Chris Stals to send a task team to Kinshasa to help with economic recovery. Stals said yesterday that the Bank could help with the managing of bank regulations, and foreign and gold reserves. The team has not yet […]
FRIDAY, 1.00PM LAURENT KABILA, self-proclaimed president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (formerly Zaire), has named his first government, but has left certain key ministries vacant, and leaving out for the time being the popular former prime minister Etienne Tshisekedi. Kabila opted for an American-style administration, abolishing the post of prime minister for which […]
Bobby Windsor, the 1974 Lions hooker, gives his view from the heart of the pack SOUTH AFRICA is a rugby country like no other. In 1974 we were hated on the field but loved off it. The welcome was a clenched fist on the one hand and back- slapping hospitality on the other. Wherever we […]
Seth Nthai WE repeatedly hear arguments from certain political parties and individuals that the solution to our crime problems is to devolve enough police powers to provinces. According to them, devolution of police powers would strengthen the arm of the South African Police Service (SAPS). I believe the devolution of police powers to provinces, to […]
Richard Williams on Eric Cantona, catalyst of Manchester United’s stunning revival, who announced his early retirement this week HOW typical of Eric Cantona that he should stand not upon the order of his going, but simply clear off. No farewell tours, no curtain calls. Yet, being Cantona, somehow the sense of a coup de thtre […]
Dawn Blalock A PLAN to build a high school for disadvantaged students has stirred up charges of racism in Sophiatown – and illustrates how the community is still haunted by its turbulent history. Sparrow Schools Educational Trust, a non- profit group that runs special education schools for disadvantaged children, is trying to buy a plot […]
position Mahmood Mamdani analyses why South African diplomacy failed in Congo SOUTH AFRICA emerging from apartheid is not the same as Congo emerging from Mobutuism. At least two political differences are worth noting. The South African transition was a compromise between forces for and against apartheid, the Congolese transition is marked by a military victory […]