TUESDAY, 3.30PM: TRUTH commissioner Richard Lyster said today that there is no evidence that the murder and secret burials of anti-apartheid activists in KwaZulu-Natal was the work of hit squads, but that the practice was “commonplace” among security police. “The more we investigate this sort of thing the more we find out that this was […]
TUESDAY, 11.00AM: SOUTH African tennis star Wayne Ferreira, plagued by a string of first-round knock-outs in international tournaments in Estoril, Madrid, Monte Carlo and Hamburg, is looking for a new racket to change his luck before the French Open in three weeks. His search has been going on for some time now, and suppliers Dunlop […]
TUESDAY, 3.30PM: A FORMER Bophuthatswana policeman today confessed to shooting dead three Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging members during violence preceeding the downfall of former Bop president Lucas Mangope on March 11 1994. In a written submission to the Tebbutt commission investigating the violence, Ontlametse Bernstein Menyatsoe, now a constable in the SA Police Service, admitted firing the […]
MONDAY, 11.00AM: THE Gauteng Lions continued their losing run with a crushing 47-9 hammering at the hands of Waikato on Saturday, all the while keeping up the haemorrhage of players to injury as stand-in skipper Ian Macdonald and centre Japie Mulder fell by the wayside. The Lions are now left with a rather threadbare side […]
MONDAY, 3.30PM: WESTERN Cape police today expressed the fear that the ongoing war between Cape Flats gangsters and People Against Gangesterism and Drugs vigilantes could lead to a majow bloodbath. Since Pagad vigilantes murdered druglord Rashaad Staggie in a gruesome lynching last August, a campaign of tit-for-tat attacks has developed between vigilantes and alleged gangsters. […]
MONDAY, 5.30PM: THE Moldenhauer commission of inquiry into irregularly issued drivers’ licences in Mpumalanga today heard that traffic officers accused of issuing as many as 300 fraudulent drivers’ licences a day at the Kabokweni testing station burnt down the centre in 1995 to destroy documentary evidence of their activities. Mpumalanga chief traffic inspector Francois Coombs […]
MONDAY, 11.00AM: SOUTH African Morgan Ndumo, holder of the WBC B-grade “International”, went down in four rounds to Mexican challenger Paul Villahabos in a non-title bout at Wembley arena in Johannesburg yesterday. The agressive Mexican made up for his lack of height with a relentless attack, making his mark with a flurry of blows to […]
NEW CRIME INTELLIGENCE HEAD NATIONAL Police Commissioner George Fivaz has announced the appointment of assistant commissioner Tim Williams as chief of police crime intelligence, following the death of previous incumbent Leonard Radu earlier this year. LESOTHO COP IN COURT SECOND Lieutenant Phakiso Modise, one of two Lesotho policemen recently refused asylum in South Africa, appeared […]
MONDAY, 11.00AM: LOG leaders Manning Rangers reinforced their position at the top of the League yesterday with a 4-0 walkover of bottom-of-the-table Witbank Aces on Aces’ home turf at KwaGuqa, ending all hopes that Aces might avoid relegation. Aces started the game fast and dominated play, but several chances were blown by their lack of […]
MONDAY, 3.30PM: SAFETY and Security Minister Sydney Mufamadi today summoned the national and provincial police commissioners and safety and security MECs to an urgent meeting in Pretoria on Wednesday to discuss the deteriorating crime situation in the country. News of the meeting emerged at a meeting today of the gauteng legislature’s standing committee on safety […]
MONDAY, 11.00AM: ORLANDO Pirates showed their class yesterday when they fought from behind to win 2-1 against Zimbabwean champion side Caps United in the second round of the African Champions’ League at the National Sports Stadium in Harare. Underdogs United came out in fighting form and grabbed immediate control with a 10th minute goal by […]
MONDAY, 9.00AM ECONOMISTS reacted positively to Reserve Bank figures released at the weekend which showed that foreign exchange reserves had risen to R14,4-billion at the end of April, up 9,9% from the end of March. More details, including the breakdown between gold and forex will only be made available this Thursday. But the bank said […]
MONDAY, 9.00AM TREVOR MANUEL’S finance department has approached the major commercial banks for their views on the lifting of exchange controls and on capital requirements. The department wants commercial banks to buy and sell government bonds rather than the Reserve Bank, but has set conditions, such as a willingness by the banks to buy and […]
CINEMA: Charl Blignaut As I was leaving Mike Leigh’s Secrets and Lies, it occurred to me that the impact of the movie pretty much depends on how screwed up your mother was. Or, for that matter, exactly how much it screwed your mother up to give birth to this life that would become a shadow […]
The Zairean rebel leader has come from 20 years of exile obscurity with little clarity about his policies, reports Rehana Rossouw AS South Africa frantically sweated to put the final touches to Zairean peace talks this week, serious doubts began to emerge about the character of the man who holds all the cards – Laurent […]
The Zairean rebels’ decision to jettison De Beers has placed the diamond cartel on an even shakier footing, reports Chris Gordon from London LAURENT KABILA’s Zairean Rebel Alliance for Democratic Forces has terminated De Beers’s contract to buy the output of the country’s diamond parastatal Miba (Socit Minire de Bakwanga). This blow to De Beers’s […]
Gustav Thiel THE Anglican Church was due in Port Elizabeth’s Labour Court this Friday to fight a case in which God’s will (according to the church) squares up to the Labour Relations Act. Roger Paxton, a former Anglican rector in the Eastern Cape, claims he was unfairly dismissed and that the church breached the new […]
Gillian Farquhar A MAGAZINE for men that sells better than GQ and Esquire … not likely? But true … Men’s Health hit South African news-stands last week and is “the most popular men’s magazine of the decade”, says Jeffrey Morgan, its United States and worldwide publisher who was in Johannesburg last week for the magazine’s […]
Satirist Pieter-Dirk Uys in The 15-Minute Interview. By Charl Blignaut CB: We’re not late are we? PDU: Nee skat. Haai, this place [Le Samovar in Hyde Park, Johannesburg] is wonderful. It reminds me of New York. Have you been to the Russian Tea House in New York? CB: No. When do you go to New […]
COLOMBIAN PRES DROPS IN COLOMBIAN president and chairman of the Non-Aligned Movement Ernesto Samper Pizano arrived at Johannesburg International Airport on Friday morning. Pizano was met at the airport by Foreign Affairs Minister Alfred Nzo, who later left for Pointe-Noire, Congo, to be with President Nelson Mandela to meet Zairean President Mobutu Sese Seko. A […]
One of the biggest sexual-harassment suits in US corporate history has led to two senior officials losing their positions at Mitsubishi and 28 women are still set to sue. Frank Swoboda and Warren Brown report Mitsubishi Motor Corporation has replaced the top two Japanese officials of its United States auto-operations as part of the continuing […]
consultants DESPITE employing 125 000 public servants, the Northern Province wants to set aside R790-million this year to pay for consultants and “special services”. The province’s Premier, Ngoaka Ramathlodi, said this week that its army of public officials had been “mostly trained to clerical level” and that the consultants were vital to ensure its administration […]
What does and what does not constitute euthanasia? It is a question of intent which will be determined by law,writes Selma Browde THE discussion paper recently released by the Law Commission for public comment is an excellent document. Unfortunately the document is entitled Euthanasia and the Artificial Preservation of Life, whereas the draft Bill, which […]
HAZEL FRIEDMAN reports on ‘wunderkind’ artist Alexandra Nechita, due to show in SA She has been described as Mozart with a paintbrush and a potential Picasso. Her paintings go for as much as $125 000. And at the rate they’re selling, Alexandra Nechita will be a multi-millionaire before the age of 12. The most recognised […]
THERE is a long-forgotten picture of Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni, then still a guerilla leader, shaking hands with then president Bazilio Okella on December 17 1985. The leaders had just signed a treaty to end the civil war and create a transitional government in Kampala. A few weeks later, Museveni tore the treaty up, took the […]
THEATRE: Andrew Wilson IN transporting Henrik Ibsen’s 19th-century naturalist drama An Enemy of the People to a local context, Wits University’s chairman of African languages, Professor Nhlanhla Maake’s adaptation is, in his own words, “a prostitute”. But it’s a hooker with no sell-by date because Ibsen’s timeless themes of power, corruption and the quest for […]
THE ROAD AHEAD by Bill Gates (Penguin Audiobooks, R79,95, abridged) Bill Gates’s manifesto on how computers will shape the future is arresting and thought-provoking. He recalls his first childhood encounter with a computer, and forsees computers and television merging. Gates believes the coming technological revolution will change the way we think, learn, shop and work. […]
Jacquie Golding-Duffy British Telecommunications (BT) took up the ultimate marketing challenge when it chose to be the title sponsor of the BT Global Challenge – a 10-month journey by 14 identical 20m steel yachts around four continents. Seen by many media observers and industry players as the most ambitious “relationship marketing” programme in the world, […]
Mark Tran in Washington and Larry Elliott THE world’s financial markets could be plunged into chaos if European Monetary Union (EMU) fails to go ahead on time in 1999, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) warned this week. With the French, German and Italian governments battling to get their economies in shape for the single currency […]
The first details of a shock report of Zimbabwe’s government troops’ atrocities in camp Bhalagwe and elsewhere has emerged despite Mugabe’s curtain of silence, writes David Beresford One of the untold horrors of Africa – the atrocities perpetrated by Robert Mugabe’s troops in the southern province of Matabeleland after independence -can finally be told. The […]
FRIDAY, 3.30PM: AN episode of the British investigative TV programme The Cook Report, due to be shown on May 6, lifts the lid on SA hunting operations which charge large sums to set up kills for foreign hunters involving drugged or confined lions. The programme makes several allegations, including that: SA game farmers are breeding […]
Bringing back Neil Tovey is the obvious answer to South Africa’s defensive problems, but it may not be the best solution SOCCER: Andrew Muchineripi THE person who coined the well-worn phrase that football is a funny game was actually being quite serious as anyone who watched South Africa defeat Zaire in the World Cup would […]