DROR EYAL found himself between racists and radicals at this year’s controversial Klein Karoo Nasionale Kunstefees `KAFFIRS wil alles oorneem; kyk hoe lank speel hulle!” [Blacks want to take over everything; look how long they play!] screams a man to my right. Short brown hair, clean shaven, T-shirt, shorts, Metlife Kaktus op die Vlaktes stick-on […]
Hazel Friedman AFTER months of expectation, this week saw the launch of the National Arts Council (NAC) – an independent statutory board established to allocate funding for the arts. Even though the NAC Bill has yet to be passed by Cabinet, the official NAC lift-off was announced by the Minister of Arts, Culture, Science and […]
Zaire’s president has reinstated a dictatorial governor he removed four years ago. Chris McGreal reports from Lumbumbashi IT is four years since Kyungu wa Kumwanza tried to revive an independent Katanga with the brutal ethnic cleansing of one million people. He even went so far as to declare secession from Zaire. It cost the demagogic […]
With his experience of African conditions and solidity in defence, Gavin `Stability Unit’ Lane looks the right man for the job in South Africa’s vital clash with Congo SOCCER: Andrew Muchineripi GAVIN LANE could complete a fairytale rise to international football this weekend when South Africa play Congo in a crucial qualifying match for the […]
More often than not the Australian batsmen have managed to blunt South Africa’s pace attack, but our leading batsmen have proved more brittle CRICKET:Pat McDermott THE St George’s Park wicket is not one that the South African team will look back on with anything other than suspicion. The uncompromising strip has not treated them well […]
Jim Day ADMINISTRATIVE problems and computer glitches have delayed the results of Census ’96 by six months, and pushed costs beyond its R365-million budget. Preliminary results from the population survey were first expected in January – then February, then March. Now, officials say it is too early even to tell when results may be ready, […]
The most senior members of the ANC’s former liberation army, Umkhonto weSizwe, are mobilising against racism in the SANDF, reports Rehana Rossouw DEPUTY Defence Minister Ronnie Kasrils has acknowledged there is racism in the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) and has extended his sympathies to lower- ranking soldiers who are victims of discrimination. The […]
Fifty years ago Jackie Robinson kept a date with destiny to defy the bigots. Pat Putnam celebrates the historic day when a major talent stepped up to bring baseball’s race barriers tumbling down IT has been a Lincolnian two score and 10 years since the time when sport was an all- white domain in the […]
Phillip van Niekerk visited the refugee camps of Khartoum, capital of Sudan, and found ethnic rifts to rival the old South Africa THERE is a jarring familiarity to the way the Sudanese refer to “them” – the tall, dark strangers now found in abundance in their northern cities. Any discussion with an Arab about independence […]
Ann Eveleth THE Inkatha Freedom Party is planning to strip all political powers from its secretary general’s post in an effort to prevent future holders commanding the influence over the party enjoyed by past incumbents. Ben Ngubane, the KwaZulu-Natal premier and IFP acting national chairman, told the Mail & Guardian this week that party officials […]
Jean-Claude Buhrer in Bern reports on Swiss banks’ efforts to keep a distance from Mobutu and rumours of his hoarded millions AFTER getting its fingers burnt by the Ferdinand Marcos affair and, even more, by the present controversy about what happened to assets deposited in Swiss banks by the victims of Nazism, the Bern government […]
A touring photographic exhibition is at last telling the truth about Hitler’s reluctant army. And some Germans don’t like it, reports STEPHEN PLAICE THE honourable German soldier coerced and corrupted by the Nazis has become one of the century’s most powerful icons, an everyman for an age mired in moral ambivalence. It has been perpetuated […]
TENNIS:Andrew Spencer THERE is, in the Swedes, the kind of chill aloofness about the way they go about the business of churning out top tennis players that reflects, in many ways, the engineered correctness of their heavy industry. The thought of flaws and setbacks being anything other than a temporary aberration simply does not exist. […]
Mark Milner and Christopher Zinn in Sydney AUSTRALIA is facing one of the biggest share flops in its history after investors cold-shouldered an innovative package aimed at financing the building of the Sydney 2000 Olympic stadium. Final figures for the A$364,4-million (R1265-million) issue, which closed on Thursday last week, have not yet been released, but […]
taxes James Meek in Moscow CONFUSION and chaos reigned across 11 time zones last week as hordes of Russians fought bureaucratic obstacles in a final attempt to throw off their reputation as a nation of tax-dodgers and settle their accounts with the revenue. In a country where people commonly accuse the government of stealing their […]
Organising Jo’burg’s streets is crucial to new investment, but street traders are taking issue with the new laws, reports Ferial Haffajee THE implementation of state-of-the-art by- laws to streamline hawking on Johannesburg’s streets has been indefinitely delayed as the Johannesburg Metropolitan Council hurries to start a hawker education programme, meant to have been completed by […]
It is four years since Chris Hani’s death, and speculation is growing that assassin Janusz Waluz was not alone, reports Stefaans Brmmer WHEN Polish immigrant Janusz Waluz was arrested shortly after he gunned down Chris Hani, his only words were that the murder weapon – found in his getaway car – had been “planted”. After […]
Lynda Loxton ANOTHER black empowerment deal emerged this week when black-controlled LA Retail Stores announced it had bought branded clothing and footwear marketer Skye Products for R115,6-million. Gauteng-based Skye, best known for distributing international brands of running shoes and clothing to stores and independent retailers throughout the country for the last 32 years, will treble […]
KAROO ARTSFESTIVAL: Gustav Thiel AN overweight twentysomething turned around and asked whether I would mind if he “killed the fucking kaffir with the beer can”. This was moments before cans were thrown at Miriam Makeba during the now infamous concert at the Klein Karoo Arts Festival. Ton Vosloo, managing director of Nasionale Pers, the main […]
Jacquie Golding-Duffy KAGISO Educational Television (KET) is a new production company that promises to make an impact on educational viewing this year through innovative ventures. Headed by dynamic duo Leora Rajak and Coco Cachalia, the production company has clinched a deal to produce a 13-part television series called Educator Express for the SABC and the […]
Marion Edmunds MEETINGS WITH REMARKABLE TREES by Thomas Pakenham (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, R195) LEAVING the skirmishes of the Boer War behind him, and the unsightly scramble by colonialists for Africa, award-winning historian Sir Thomas Pakenham has chosen still, silent subjects for his most recent research. Meetings with Remarkable Trees is an unusual and beautiful picture […]
Rescheduling has led to a struggle to save programmes, reports Jacquie Golding-Duffy AN embattled SABC current affairs division is scrambling to salvage some of its programmes in the wake of a shake-up in the department’s schedules. Viewers of SABC3 will only have one current affairs slot a week, scheduled for 9.30pm on Thursdays, while viewers […]
Glynis O’ Hara GILLIAN SLOVO and I are sitting in a hotel lounge discussing her new book, Every Secret Thing: My Family, My Country, when a couple walk in, throw themselves on a couch nearby and say: “Have you read Gillian Slovo’s new book? It’s really good.” The woman looks over at us and recognition […]
TV programmes are being rescheduled in an attempt to win back advertisers and viewers, reportGillian Farquhar and Jacquie Golding-Duffy IN an effort to increase advertising revenue and attract viewers, the SABC’s three TV channels are rescheduling prime- time programmes, dropping most magazine productions and introducing “more entertainment-driven” television like game shows and foreign sitcoms. The […]
The Johannesburg child protection unit has failed to act on a seemingly watertight case, reports Stuart Hess HE stands on a Hillbrow street corner, selling sweets to children. To the unsuspecting, Isaac Tshipe is just another street vendor; but to four-year-old Thembi (not her real name) he is the man who raped and assaulted her […]
CLASSICAL ON CD: Coenraad Visser THE new Decca diva is American soprano Renee Fleming. Two years ago she was a last-minute replacement for Georg Solti’s live recording of Cosi fan tutte. So enthusiastic was the critical reception that Decca immediately signed her as an exclusive artist. That spurred a publicity campaign last launched to place […]
The trade department is set to launch its Competitiveness Fund, which draws on specialists to help small businesses grow, reports Madeleine Wackernagel THE Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) is to seek tender applications for an operator to run its Competitiveness Fund by the end of this month. The fund, established to help small businesses […]
This year’s Rustlers Valley Easter Festival became a battle between the ravers and the hippies, reports SUZYBELL A WOODPECKER screeched as 900 Gemini twins howled at the half-eaten moon. Yup, the rave scene has infiltrated this once laid- back hippie pastoral happening – Rustlers Easter festival. “It’s just thud, thud, thud, thud,” moaned the hippies. […]
Benjamin Pogrund joins the debate over the Jewish community and its role in apartheid A HAUNTING memory as a child in Cape Town is of my father weeping when news reached him in the 1940s about the murder of our relatives in Lithuania. They were among the more than 260 000 Jews wiped out in […]
Oceans ROADRUNNING:Julian Drew DESPITE all the noise about breaking the course record coming from Zithulele Sinqe in the lead up to Saturday’s 56km Two Oceans Marathon, the safe money for the title is riding on Abel Mokibe of Scaw Harriers. Both Sinqe, last year’s winner and South African record-holder over the standard marathon with his […]
Mungo Soggot JUSTICE Minsister Dullah Omar said this week the squad of judges and lawyers recently appointed to root out state corruption could be the first of several special units to dispense a new brand of swift justice against public-sector malpractice. The Special Investigative Unit and Special Tribunal, which was set up by President Nelson […]
THE ANGELLA JOHNSON INTERVIEW PICTURE this as the new corporate logo for South African Airways: a humongous image of Desmond Tutu’s beaming face emblazoned on the tail of the national carrier, with the words “gravy plane” running alongside. This was just one of the numerous items of “hate mail” Peter Vundla says his advertising agency, […]