Rebels are advancing on Zaire’s third- largest city but sceptics in the West are resisting France’s calls for an intervention force, writes Chris McGreal FRANCE is pursuing a lonely campaign to revive plans for an international force in Zaire to halt the rebel advance and prevent what it says is a genocide in the making. […]
SO, the first black finance minister presented his first Budget and the sky did not fall in. After a year of faux pas and financial market fiascos, Trevor Manuel did the impossible: he nigh on pleased all of the people, at least for a few hours. Parliament applauded, and the markets rewarded him with a […]
Stuart Hess AT least two of the investigators working on Sports Minister Steve Tshwete’s probe into South African rugby can draw on extensive inside knowledge of the sport’s administration. The investigation into the South African Rugby Football Union (Sarfu) faltered last week when it emerged that the 500-page dossier containing the central allegations against Sarfu […]
Trevor Manuel’s first Budget confounded his critics and pleased the markets, reports Madeleine Wackernagel THE South African Chamber of Business (Sacob) has long called for a champion to lead the government’s growth, employment and redistribution (Gear) strategy. On Wednesday, it looked like one had been found. Minister of Finance, Trevor Manuel dubbed his first Budget […]
South African teams have done well in the Super 12 so far, but they will have to keep concentration for the full 80 minutes of the game if they are to survive in this competition RUGBY:Jon Swift PERHAPS the Afrikaans phrases are the most apposite. They talk of murg en been in the context of […]
Alan Gray, chief executive of the Mpumalanga Parks Board who led the controversial Dolphin natures reserves deal, has wide business interests in the area, reports Justin Arenstein THE man who led Mpumalanga Parks Board into a controversial nature reserve deal with the Dubai-based Dolphin Group owns companies that hold lucrative contracts with the parks board. […]
Pirate CD producers in Eastern Europe could bring the European recording industry to its knees, reports Stuart Miller from London THE European recording industry has launched a frontal assault on the large- scale illegal production of pirate compact discs in Eastern Europe, which is costing companies and their artists billions of dollars in lost revenue […]
Frederick Chiluba and Kenneth Kaunda are allegedly involved in a deal to quash court cases involving their nationality. Anthony Kunda reports ZAMBIAN President Frederick Chiluba and former president Kenneth Kaunda are allegedly involved in secret negotiations which could result in the petition against Chiluba’s nationality and re-election being withdrawn from the supreme court. The petition […]
The CNA Literary Award is no more. SHAUN DE WAAL looks back at its successes and failures, and asks some questions about a future prize AFTER 35 years, the CNA Literary Award has come to an end. Some might accuse this paper of having helped to kill it – after all, Sarah Ruden, who won […]
Hazel Friedman A MILESTONE in educational programming on television and radio has been reached with the SABC’s new Learn `N Live initiative, giving independent producers an unprecendented opportunity to make their mark by replacing the SABC’s traditionally stodgy fare. Learn `N Live, a joint initiative between the SABC and the Department of Education, not only […]
Lynda Loxton FINANCE MINISTER Trevor Manuel this week took the bit between his teeth and announced a sweeping relaxation of exchange controls, much to the delight of the markets. “The changes in the exchange control regime … are profound,” Manuel said in his Budget address on Wednesday. In a joint statement with Reserve Bank governor […]
GWEN ANSELL talks to a new generation of jazz composers involved in Our Music Our Voices at the breakthrough 1997 Windybrow Arts Festival IN a tiny, sweaty rehearsal room at the Windybrow Theatre an improbably large band of musicians pounds its way through McCoy Mrubata’s Sangoma Blues. In the middle, in the few square feet […]
`Peace’ initiators are said to be holding peace to ransom, reports Ann Eveleth THE decision by the KwaZulu-Natal government to sit on a damning report linking key politicians in the province to hit-squad activity has raised fresh concerns about the region’s embryonic peace drive. A South African National Defence Force (SANDF) report leaked last week […]
Stefaans Brmmer TRANSKEI Attorney General Christo Nel will prosecute casino magnate Sol Kerzner – provided Kerzner’s pre-emptive attempt to stop him fails. Nel, who has waged an often single-handed campaign to have the R2-million bribery and corruption charges against Kerzner tested in court, was restrained in an 11th-hour interim interdict this week from arresting Kerzner […]
HEADLINES in some South African newspapers this week – “Madiba back from Asia with billions” – reflect the obsession South Africa has with the quick fix. Faced with massive social problems the country longs for a magic formula, or simply a magician, to conjure up instant solutions. The Sultan of Brunei is the richest man […]
Robin McKie in London ON the North Sea floor, off the Farne Islands, scientists have discovered a mysterious gathering place for grey seals. It is the aquatic equivalent of a favourite country pub. Some seals will swim hundreds of miles through murky seas just to visit it. The discovery has baffled researchers, who cannot explain […]
Gustav Thiel A WEDGE has been driven through Western Cape cricket over the decision to drop an investigation into Western Province Cricket Association vice-president Percy Sonn. Sonn, who is also Western Cape deputy attorney general, told the Mail & Guardian last month that he often drank heavily, had told SABC commentator Martin Locke to “fuck […]
South African artists continue to exist in a cultural vacuum that gives too little recognition too late, writes Hazel Friedman THERE is an ancient Greek proverb that says the soul of a nation will be judged by the way it treats its artists. If this is so, then South Africa has much to answer for. […]
tangible benefits Lynda Loxton IT could take 10 to 15 years for the government’s strategy to promote small and medium-sized enterprises to start paying off in tangible terms, Trade and Industry Deputy Minister Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka said this week. Replying to the debate on the parliamentary trade and industry committee’s special report on small business finance, […]
This week at the world indoor championships in Paris another male bastion fell. Duncan Mackay tells the unfinished story of pride and prejudice WOMEN are allowed to serve in the armed services, pilot aeroplanes and run the country. But they are still considered too fragile to compete in some athletics events. Ever since Baron Pierre […]
Gavin Dudley THE first second of the year 2000 will see your personal history vanish forever. At least as far as your bank, government and insurance company are concerned. And perhaps it is typical that these bureaucracies do not seem disturbed at this prospect. More than 80% of the computers controlling the obvious and invisible […]
Coaches of South African teams don’t have it easy, but coaching Nigeria’s Super Eagles is even harder SOCCER: Andrew Muchineripi PERHAPS there are more difficult assignments than coaching the Nigerian national football team. Swimming a crocodile-infested river or walking blindfolded across a minefield spring to mind, but the list is pretty short. So when former […]
Denis Staunton in Berlin and Ian Traynor in Bonn A SENIOR adviser to Chancellor Helmut Kohl has called on him to admit that Germany would not pass the test this year for a single European currency and urged a delay in the launch of European Monetary Union (EMU). But as Herbert Hax – head of […]
collection Manuel has tinkered with income tax, but we’ll have to wait for the Katz Commission report for a more holistic approach, reports Madeleine Wackernagel ONE of these days, South Africans may enjoy a more equitable income tax system – but not yet. In its pre-Budget presentation, the South African Chamber of Business estimated that […]
Ann Eveleth THE creation this week of black-owned Khulani Springbok Patrols consummates a long-standing relationship between the Inkatha Freedom Party and a 35-year-old family security business. Security industry sources said this week the sale by the Bartmann family of a R50- million interest in Springbok Patrols to IFP-aligned Khulani Holdings – and the appointment of […]
The financial magazine has threatened to sue Business Day and M&G for publishing allegations of unethical behaviour about its owner, reports Mungo Soggot THE battle of the media industry’s financial gurus intensified this week as Finance Week threatened legal action against its rival Business Day and vowed to publish a personal attack on its editor […]
Jim Day THE knife in his hand was a good 15cm long. But he was pleasant when he said, “I don’t want to hurt you. Just give me your money.” His buddies surrounded me, four or five of them, pulled me back and to the ground and started grabbing at my pockets. They didn’t beat […]
Letsholo THE Botswana government has dismissed as “lies” reports from Bushmen in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve that they are being pressured to leave their ancestral lands with verbal promises of hard cash. The permanent secretary in the Ministry of Lands, Elridge Mhlauli, said this week that he was still in the process of answering […]
Enriched uranium once intended for South Africa’s nuclear weapons is now helping medical science, writes Lesley Cowling THE Atomic Energy Corporation (AEC) is using enriched uranium to fuel a research reactor that now produces medical isotopes for international export and local use. But the uranium was enriched in a process designed by AEC scientists in […]
Thomas Mallon SELECTED STORIES by Alice Munro (Chatto & Windus, R110) ALICE MUNRO’S deeply imagined, almost awesome Selected Stories turn William Faulkner’s famous musing about the past’s not really being past into an understatement. In Munro’s world, the present is scarcely present; the moment we live in is just a flask in which the past’s […]
Rip Hopkins IN the capital of Madagascar, Antananarivo, thousands of children live on the streets. Madagascar is one of the poorest countries in the world and the capital sees the extremes of its poverty. The children, some as young as six months old, survive in gangs of 30 or so. Some sleep in skips or […]
THE ANGELLA JOHNSON INTERVIEW SHE sits across the table, carving enthusiastically into a large steak. “Garlic, love it, but it’s bad for business.” Tonight Sandy van der Toorn is off duty. There will be no fondling in the jacuzzi, no whipping clients hanging like carcasses from pulleys in the ceiling, no naked massages and definitely […]