Stuart Hess THE Gauteng health department could save R1-billion if it accepts cost-cutting proposals made by health workers’ unions, including centralising services, eliminating private nursing in public hospitals, and scrapping private security, the unions said this week. The figure is almost double the R550- million the Gauteng health department said it could save when it […]
The hunt is on for informants in the ANC, report Ann Eveleth, Rehana Rossouw and Peta Thornycroft THE African National Congress is sitting on information linking one of its prominent provincial members of Parliament in KwaZulu-Natal to the former South African Security Police. The allegations about the MPP first surfaced in 1994 following the death […]
Marion Edmunds THE paper trail stemming from secret six- figure payouts to senior staff at Stellenbosch University led to the rector’s office this week. Professor Andreas van Wyk, who until now has kept silent on the payouts, is being challenged on his campus to confirm or deny whether he handed himself a windfall of R160000. […]
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 […]
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. […]
Chris Taylor THERE was a time when clubs in Rio de Janeiro needed look no further than the nearest side street, car park, beach or backyard for the next crop of football talent. Young players seemed to sprout like the weeds in the wasteground where they would hone their skills until it was too dark […]
South Africa is such a popular refugee destination that Home Affairs is swamped,reports Marion Edmunds THE Department of Home Affairs is swamped with so many applicants for political asylum it is contemplating setting up reception centres around the country to accommodate them while they wait for their cases to be heard. More than 800 people […]
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 […]
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 […]
Would this year’s Bandslam follow the triumphs of last year? MALU VAN LEEUWEN was at the River Club concert APOLOGISTS for the so-called South African Music Explosion are probably going to hate me for this, but it’s so corny it’s worthy of a Leon Shuster gag – except the man has more taste than to […]
Another international women’s magazine, Marie Claire, is launching a local issue, but the interests of most women in South Africa are still being neglected, say local black editors. Gillian Farquhar reports COMPETITION is hotting up in the magazine market with internationally acclaimed French title Marie Claire poised to launch its local edition in May. Coming […]
Confessions by five former policemen have revealed the devious operations of the security police, including the murder of a man working clandestinely for the military. Peta Thornycroft reports FORMER northern Transvaal security policeman captain Jacques Hechter has the dubious honour of admitting to more murders than any other confessor to the truth commission. In his […]
Mungo Soggot THE foreign merchant banks handed the contract to help sell a R6-billion chunk of Telkom have secured government agreement that their fees, to be paid by the taxpayer, remain under wraps. The Posts, Telecommunications and Broadcasting Ministry this week refused to disclose how much money was paid to SBC Warburg, which was employed […]
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 […]
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 […]
DANCE: Swapna Prabhakaran WHY did they call it the Dance Umbrella? For two weeks now, there’s been a gentle but persistent rain over the city of Johannesburg, adding its own peculiar drumming to the rhythms of dance at the Wits Theatre. The grey downpour outside the Braamfontein building drew a motley crew indoors to share […]
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 […]
LESLEY MARX revisits The Space theatre and some of its stalwarts and memories in time for the 25th anniversary celebrations ARTHUR BENJAMIN has a huge warm wicked generous laugh. It erupts as he tries to explain why Brian Astbury was, for him, an inspirational figure at The Space Theatre: “He got you to do things […]
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 […]
Tangeni Amupadhi reports on an inquiry into Northern Province property deals that have earned a fortune for an amiable Greek millionaire TO the politicians and community leaders of the Northern Province he is a fatherly figure, a kind of patron saint of Phalaborwa. Dimitri Kourtoumbellides, known to his friends as Jimmy, has on various occasions […]
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 […]
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 […]
THE X-FILES has been a huge international hit since it launched in the US three years ago, and it has just won three Golden Globe awards. Now its creator, Chris Carter, has taken an even bigger risk with his new series, Millennium. In Britain, Alan Yentob, director of programmes at BBC-TV, asks Carter about the […]
As we speed towards the new millennium, popular culture is being invaded by psychoses, conspiracies, warnings of digital chaos – and little grey creatures. In our heads and on our TV screens we are watching the invasion. Believe. Dror Eyal GREYISH skin, elongated oval head and huge wraparound eyes. It’s an image that heralds the […]
MUSIC: Neil Spencer ‘YOU have to be careful – you can suddenly find yourself tied in with Liberty’s new range of Indian cushions,” reflects Talvin Singh with a grimace. Tabla player, DJ, club promoter and now label boss, Singh is talking up his new compilation album, Anokha: Sounds of the Asian Underground (released by Omni/Mango […]
Aliens are arrested and imprisoned without consideration for their rights, reports Marion Edmunds RAPHAEL MAVUDZI was not the first visitor to South Africa from north of the border to fail to have his papers in order. Nor was he the first to be arrested for that failure, under the Aliens Control Act, and thrown into […]
John le Carre is credited by some with originating one of the most powerful analytical tools since sod’s law: the explanation of human endeavour and its frustration in terms of the conspiracy and the cock-up theories. It is perhaps time it was brought to bear on South Africa’s most critical problem: crime. Over recent months […]
Grit, concentration and application were vital facets of Kepler Wessels’s approach to the game, and it is these qualities that the South Africans need if they are to compete with the Australians CRICKET:Jon Swift THERE is nothing basically dishonourable about losing. It is part of the complex business of life. The real inner examination though […]
Was Finance Week publisher David Gleason a hired gun? Mungo Soggot reports THE feud between Times Media Limited and former employee David Gleason exploded into the public domain this week, as TML’s Business Day newspaper published long- rumoured allegations about Gleason’s ethical behaviour. The newspaper on Wednesday published a carefully worded but wounding article alleging […]
Marion Edmunds THE government is to investigate importing Cuban teachers to shore up the state school service. Education Minister Sibusiso Bengu said this week he planned to go to Cuba later this month to look at the country’s maths and science teachers. He dismissed suggestions that the government’s redeployment programme – where state teachers were […]
Jan Raath in Harare INVESTIGATIONS into allegations that former Zimbabwean president Reverend Canaan Banana repeatedly raped and sexually abused at least one police aide-de-camp have begun “in full seriousness”, a police source said here this week. “The commissioner [of police, Augustine Chiuri] said inquiries would begin immediately, and they did,” the source said. He would […]
Chris Dunton CHILDREN OF THE DIASPORA AND OTHER STORIES OF EXILE by Mbulelo Vizikhungo Mzamane (Vivlia, R42,95) THE NAKED SONG AND OTHER STORIES by Mandla Langa (David Philip, R59,95) MBULELO MZAMANE’S title for his collection cues us in – his are largely stories that look back to the days of the struggle, and most are […]