Anti-Aids activists claim the Health Department has good policies – on paper – but is falling down on implementation.Jim Day reports ONLY about half of R65-million budgeted for HIV education, prevention and care has yet been used -even while the virus continues to spread alarmingly. The money, from the Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP), is […]
police Police watchdog finds itself toothless as Western Cape officers defy its recommendations over Robben Island rape.Gustav Thiel reports THE Western Cape’s police commissioner, Leon Wessels, has defied calls by the government’s Independent Complaints Directorate that he reprimand two officers involved in the botched Robben Island rape investigation. Wessels this week also retracted the “unreserved […]
FRIDAY, 5.00PM: The health of Zairean dictator Mobutu Sese Seko proved to be an immediate impediment to today’s peace talks when Mobutu was too weak to climb the gangplank of the SA Navy ship Outeniqua in Ponte Noire, Congo this afternoon. A debate followed as to how best to get the ailing president aboard, with […]
pupils Dawn Blalock RONL BURGER is a businesswoman of the year who can barely turn a profit. Burger is the headmistress of Malvern Primary School, Johannesburg. She is also the owner of a privately run hostel that houses up to 35 of the school’s children. Wearing her two hats – one as a government servant […]
FRIDAY, 12.00NOON: SPRINGBOK lock Johan Ackermann and two Gauteng Lions players, Bennie Nortje and Stephan Bronkhorst, were yesterday given two-year suspensions by a SA Rugby Football Union disciplinary inquiry for using anabolic steroids. Ackermann, one of the Blue Bulls’ highest-paid players, indicated he will lodge an appeal, citing “improper testing procedures”. The hearing was delayed […]
FRIDAY, 4.30PM: THE Lesotho National Assembly today began debating the return of “conquered territory” (effectively the whole Free State) from South Africa. Foreign Minister Kelibone Maope told the assembly his government intends to hire a specialist to advise Lesotho on the issue of borders between Lesotho and SA. Maope added the government intends asking MPs […]
Voluntary organisation Otherwise has taken the homeless off the streets and put them on the air in an innovative new project, reports Glynis O’ Hara BABALWA NANI (21) has spent the past five years on the streets of Cape Town doing anything and everything to survive. Now she is involved in an autobiographical radio documentary. […]
FRIDAY 11.00AM INVESTMENT in SA by United States companies is growing at 25% a year despite the country’s widely publicised crime problem, a US chamber of commerce official said yesterday. Bill Mallory, the chamber’s immediate past president, said: “A crime survey by the US business community, which is duye to be released soon, shows that […]
FRIDAY, 8.00AM: A PROTEST meeting in Bushbuckridge, Northern Province, turned violent when constitutional affairs minister Mohammed Valli Moosa failed to arrive to address the crowd. Police shot and seriously injured four people afer the crowd had erected barricades and burnt a police vehicle. Bushbuckridge is a disputed area, given to the Northern Province despite calls […]
Ferial Haffajee Trade unions are the training ground of a different type of MBA graduate. Like those with MBAs, unionists are all- rounders who are “well-versed in finance, work organisation and conflict resolution”, says Bobby Maree, programme co-ordinator of the Development Institute for Training, Support and Education for Labour (Ditsela). Years of negotiations have made […]
charged Peta Thornycroft SEVERAL “third force” trials may not take place because the Transvaal attorney general’s office is grossly under- resourced. Dozens of former and present members of the security forces are likely to escape being charged for their crimes. Knowing that they will not be prosecuted will also enable them to avoid applying for […]
AN imprisoned Chinese journalist, Gao Yu, has been awarded this year’s Unesco/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize. The $25 000 prize is named after an assassinated Colombian journalist. Awarded for the first time this year it is timed for May 3, observed annually as World Press Freedom Day. Gao Yu (53) began as a reporter […]
Amid all the horrors of Matabeleland one name stands out as being particularly synonymous with human depravity: Bhalagwe camp. It was originally a base for ex-Zipra troops incorporated into the Zimbabwe National Army. But in 1982 the troops there were accused of being dissidents. The camp was surrounded by paratroop and commando units and shut […]
FRIDAY, 12.00NOON: SUNDOWNS recovered from an own goal in the first half to crush Kaizer Chiefs with a 3-1 victory in a tense Premier League clash at Odi Stadium yesterday. Downs’ midfielder Linda Buthelezi gave Chiefs a free lead in the 18th minute when he accidentally headed the ball into his team’s net. But Downs […]
Lesley Cowling Imagine the life of Sergeant Van der Merwe. He comes home after a hard day at work, switches on the television to relax and gets yet another detective drama. Not only do his glamorous counterparts get to solve crimes in the space of an hour, but they’re surrounded by state-of-the-art law enforcement technology. […]
SA SAILING:Jonathan Spencer Jones. ‘THE boat, all 42 tons of it, was picked up by a wave and literally thrown over the next wave to land flat, down on her side. But she picked up and off we went again.” And that, in Hurricane Fergus in the Pacific, just three days from Wellington, New Zealand, […]
FRIDAY, 12.00NOON: A PUTTING infringement set veteran Argentinian Eduardo Romero back two shots in the Italian Open yesterday offered the first day’s lead to South African Retief Goosen. Goosen ended the first round on six-under par 66, two shots ahead of the Argentinian. Goosen defied flu to shoot his 66, putting him one point ahead […]
FRIDAY 11.00AM The start of trade in rand-dollar futures on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange next week will help stabilise the local currency, Finance Minister Trevor Manuel said yesterday. “Instruments like the futures contract are likely to dampen the volatility we lived through last year because they put instruments of choice on the market place,” Manuel […]
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. […]