A leaked memo shows that there are serious disagreements at the SABC over the termination of the broadcaster’s news service. Richard Siskind reports AFTER three weeks without Sapa’s news service, a split erupted this week at the SABC when a leaked internal memo from TV executive producer Jeremy Thorpe was reported to have said the […]
Matthew Krouse HISTORY records the existence of Yiddish theatre troupes in South Africa, in the 1880s, when an alumnus of the famous Goldfadn, Yankl Rosenfeld, led several performances of Yiddish classics. The latter part of the 19th century saw ad hoc troupes travelling the breadth of the country, playing to a culture-starved European audience that […]
Unions and mine bosses prepare to wrestle with pay issues in South Africa’s biggest industry, reports Ferial Haffajee FOR the next four months, mining and union bosses will be virtually incommunicado as the annual wage talks get under way. Busy cellphones and bated breath will be the order of the day. But down on the […]
Lynda Loxton THE financial services market could be in for a shake-up this year as supermarket giant Pick ‘n Pay moves into in-store banking. Fairly common in Britain, the concept is new to South Africa and has created quite a stir in the conservative banking community. What particularly irks the banks is that Pick ‘n […]
With the SABC not meeting its public service mandate, advertisers and independent producers are pushing the IBA to speedily decide on a new free-to-air channel, writes Jacquie Golding-Duffy THE burgeoning crisis and disarray within the SABC is prompting independent producers and advertisers to look to the new free-to- air channel as a way of rescuing […]
The skull affectionately known as Mrs Ples was unearthed 50 years ago. What are the new controversies in evolutionary theory, asks Lesley Cowling MRS PLES would be hard to find at an exhibition of human fossils, if she weren’t encased in glass and mounted on a little podium of her own. There is not much, […]
companies Jim Day THE London-based lawyers who recently won more than R9-million for workers poisoned by mercury contamination in KwaZulu-Natal have launched a suit against a British company that ran asbestos mines in South Africa. Richard Meeran, a solicitor with Leigh, Day & Co, has filed proceedings against Cape plc of Middlesex, the parent of […]
Justin Arenstein THE head of Dolphin, the foreign company which has secured exclusive commercial rights to top South African tourism sites, this week evaded attempts by politicians in his home country to question him over a defaulted R34-million government contract. Ketan Somaia was summoned to appear before Kenya’s parliamentary Public Accounts Committee, but failed to […]
The conflict in Zaire took a long time to make the news and has been poorly reported, with a few notable exceptions, writes Alison Campbell SO far, there is little in the reporting of Zaire, or Congo, as the rebels have renamed it, to suggest that it is any more than another tin-pot African war. […]
GOLF: Bill Elliott AUGUSTA National Golf Club like to promote the idea that they, the US Masters and all things related are about tradition above all else. Over the years, this has become something of a tradition in itself. Nowhere is this more evident than on the greensward close to the back of the clubhouse, […]
Tiger Woods’s father believes his son will `do more than any other man in history to change the course of humanity’. Many golf fans will concur after he won the US Masters last weekend GOLF:Greg Williams THIS week America officially remembered an infamous footnote in its history. Tuesday marked the 50th anniversary of Jackie Roosevelt […]
Eddie Koch and Charl Blignaut wrestle with just what it is that makes the big men in little costumes fly through the air IS it theatre? Is it sport? we wondered, as the African Storm World Wrestling Federation (WWF) tour rumbled into town. The truth is, it’s probably something altogether in between. Wrestling is, said […]
The draft Basic Conditions of Employment Bill, released this week, has raised the ire of business and labour. A compromise is vital if Gear is to stay on track. Madeleine Wackernagel and Ferial Haffajee report THE next stage in the heavyweight battle to get the draft Basic Conditions of Employment Bill passed into law is […]
Former apartheid minister Adriaan Vlok is still seen as a superhero. Marion Edmunds reports SUTHERLAND is a Karoo town where coloureds and whites still bury their dead on different sides of a fence. This deference to apartheid does not stop at the cemetery gates. Whites in the Northern Cape town also like to pay quiet […]
Mungo Soggot COLIN BUNDY, vice-rector at the University of the Western Cape (UWC), has emerged as a leading contender for the politically charged top job at Wits. The widely respected historian, closely associated with UWC’s transformation, confirmed this week he had accepted nomination for the post. Bundy, it is believed, enjoys strong support on the […]
Treatment for Aids barely exists for 90% of Third World patients. That may now change, says the scientist who discovered the Aids virus. Dawn Blalock reports AIDS is no longer the disease it used to be, says the man who discovered the virus that causes it. There’s still no cure, but more effective treatments are […]
The Independent Producers’ Organisation (IPO) has launched a campaign to save the SABC. We agree that it is time to draw back from the welter of condemnation attaching itself to the national broadcaster and its crises, and ask instead how we can rescue what is one of our most important cultural assets, one that reaches […]
Marion Edmunds THE cash-strapped Western Cape Education Department is depositing millions of rands into the bank accounts of adult literacy centres for spending on education materials – but largely ignores their administrative and teaching needs. With confusion rife, concern is mounting among literacy centres and providers of education materials: they worry that the system set […]
The health authorities fudged the damning findings of an investigation into the deaths of four patients at the hands of one of Zuma’s Cuban doctors. Mungo Soggot and Marion Edmunds report MINISTER of Health Dr Nkosazana Zuma has been implicated in a cover-up of circumstances surrounding the deaths of four patients – including a seven-year-old […]
In a move to eradicate sweatshops worldwide, a US task force has reached agreement on working conditions and wages in clothing and shoe factories, reports Paul Blustein LEADING representatives of the United States clothing industry, responding to an anti- sweatshop initiative by President Bill Clinton, have reached what they call an “historic” agreement with labour […]
Peter Makurube SOUTH AFRICA is the only country on the continent where reggae music never took off – at least not among black people. After all, the powers that used to be did not allow it. It is protest music, and like all songs containing lyrics deemed “undesirable”, reggae never got air time on the […]
South African theatre has a specific Jewish history. Our writers look at productions both past and present Claudia Braude POPULAR theatrical representations of Holocaust history are the rage in Johannesburg. Diane Samuels’s Kindertransport, running to critical acclaim at the Market Theatre, explores the return of memory of one survivor of Nazism. Evelyn is a composite […]
A convicted hijacker has been set free following a constitutional judgment that has created a crucial legal precedent, reports Mungo Soggot IN a landmark constitutional judgment, a man convicted of hijacking and attempted murder was released on Tuesday after only 15 months’ imprisonment as he had not been offered free legal advice. Patrick Mgcina (30) […]
In his first year as a professional, Tiger Woods is carving a place among the game’s immortals GOLF: Richard Williams WE need sport to be unpredictable. That is the point of it. But from time to time we also need to witness the inevitability of undisputed greatness. And when Tiger Woods stalked the acres of […]
Tangeni Amupadhi THE banks and police have been concealing crucial information about the growing wave of bank robberies, including statistics that police apprehend only 10% of culprits. The information reveals that the crime wave besetting South Africa is even worse than the public has been led to believe. The Mail & Guardian has established that […]
Declining copper prices and foreign investment have forced Zaire’s president to scratch the bottom of the barrel, report James Rupert and David Ottaway PRESIDENT Mobutu Sese Seko, who for years has been widely regarded as one of the world’s most corrupt and wealthy men, appears to have run out of cash, according to diplomats and […]
Hein Marais GROWING fears about South Africa’s crime rate have failed to prompt business to finance one of the country’s most successful anti-crime projects. The Johannesburg-based Trauma Clinic, which provides free counselling to victims of crime, has had its funding requests turned down by a welter of major South African corporations. They include South African […]
SUZY BELL speaks to reggae superstar Lucky Dube about the release of his new album Taxman – and other taxing matters HE sits comfortably cross-legged in the Oppenheimer suite of the Edward Hotel with a toffee-coloured woolly tea cosy of a hat hiding his trademark Rasta dreads. His speech is slow and deliberate, with more […]
South African police blame it all on the Nigerians, but the drug trafficking problem is much larger than that and if it continues to be ignored is likely to lead to violent confrontations Philippa Garson SOUTH AFRICA’S drug abuse and trafficking problem is not being treated seriously enough and there will be further Pagad-style confrontation […]
THE FNB Vita Art Awards has copped out of competition mode. But there’s no need to write an obituary. Vita is definitely not on its way out. In conjunction with the Sandton Civic Art Gallery, it has come up with a new contemporary art prize. This award, says Vita director Phillip Stein, aims to promote […]
If a new Bill passes in Zambia, the government will have more control over the press than ever before, reports Anthony Kunda in Lusaka THE Zambian government is gearing itself to gag journalists through the establishment of a media council which will have the power to license or bar from practice any journalist flouting set […]
1975 Born Eldrick Woods on December 30 in Cypress, 35 miles from Los Angeles, son of retired US Army Lt Col Earl and Thai-born wife Kultida. Nicknamed Tiger after Vietnamese friend of Earl. 1976 At six months sees father hit golf balls into a net and imitates his swing. 1978 TV appearance, putting with Bob […]