Ann Eveleth THE Durban High Court ruled this week that President Nelson Mandela has the right, if he chooses, to appoint biased and partial commissions of inquiry, and that citizens have no legal recourse to oppose them. The ruling by Judge Ron McLaren followed the leak of documents from a secret October 1996 meeting between […]
JONATHAN ROMNEY speaks to cult Hollywood director Tim Burton about his freaks, frailties and fame – and his latest film Mars Attacks! TIM BURTON’S Mars Attacks! seems like a sure-fire recipe for box-office success – hordes of evil aliens, a cult director with a berserk visual imagination, and a prodigally illustrious cast (Nicholson, Close, DeVito, […]
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 […]
Stuart Hess and Mungo Soggot finally got to see the report that caused all the trouble THE dossier which prompted a government inquiry into rugby and this week’s high court battle between rugby supremo Louis Luyt and Sports Minister Steve Tshwete contains little more than press clippings and court papers. Documents handed to Tshwete by […]
Need computer information in a readable form? Try these PCReview books, writes BARBARA LUDMAN THE boffins who write the Mail & Guardian’s PCReview supplement have now turned out an entertaining series of guides to the computer age. First up is Irwin Manoim’s Buying the Right Computer (R49,95); next comes Mish Middelmann’s The Lowdown on Windows […]
Iden Wetherell in Harare PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe this week led a high-powered team to London to drum up investment in Zimbabwe’s faltering economy. Government sources in Harare have been upbeat about the interest shown by British companies. But it remains to be seen whether this will translate into money and jobs. Investment is vital to […]
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 […]
A fund set up to encourage banks to finance housing in high-risk areas has not been used, reports Mungo Soggot THE government agency set up to entice banks into lending money for housing in high-risk areas has concentrated on areas where it admits there is no risk. In its two years of existence, the Mortgage […]
Glynis O’Hara THE Independent Broadcasting Authority’s (IBA) seven new radio licences announced this week are set to breathe life and diversity into the airwaves. Allowing for specialist and group interests, they avoided adding yet more pop music stations to that over-tired parade. The three FM stations in Gauteng went to Classic FM (classical music and […]
What exactly is South Africa doing in its new, state-of-the-art Antarctic research base? Lesley Cowling reports PICTURES of Antarctica show a pristine wonderland: stunning white snow and poster- blue seas, penguins in their zoot suits, the wildest cleanest place on earth. But it’s also the coldest, windiest place on earth. In winter there’s no light, […]
Running at altitude, South African athletes are going to struggle to beat the qualifying marks for the world championships ATHLETICS:Julian Drew SOUTH AFRICA’S top athletes go to Potchefstroom’s peculiarly shaped Kenneth McArthur Oval this weekend knowing that a national title along with a performance which betters Athletic South Africa’s (ASA) qualifying standards will automatically gain […]
Mungo Soggot TWO of Johannesburg’s elite schools went head-to-head this week, not on the playing field but in the somewhat seedier surrounds of the Randburg Magistrate’s Court, to settle a case of assault, with racial overtones and a sporting twist. The case stemmed from a fight at the Randburg Waterfront last year between two students, […]
Three former editors have distanced themselves from the submission by Independent Newspapers to the truth commission, reports Jacquie Golding-Duffy EX-EDITORS of the former Argus Company, the new management at Independent Newspapers and journalists are involved in a heated debate regarding the Independent group’s submission to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). In an extraordinary move, […]
bomb Aspasia Karras CRIME and unemployment grab the headlines, but an even greater obstacle to putting South Africa on the fast growth track is illiteracy. The fact that the National Economic Development and Labour Council (Nedlac) put the issue high on its agenda at its first meeting this year highlights the growing concern that without […]
Marion Edmunds THE government is trying to revive the Presidential Review Commission, created to help reform the ailing public sector but paralysed by its own problems, which culminated recently in the resignation of its chairman. Professor Bax Nomvete, who by all accounts had a stormy relationship with the rest of the commission, has refused to […]
Catalyst Films is becoming the busiest and most respected production house in South Africa. ANDREW WORSDALE reports IN early 1986 Jeremy Nathan was doing his military service with the film unit of the Entertainment Corp – a virtual propaganda wing for the South African Defence Force. At night, though, he’d hang out with friends Matthew […]
TEN lucky readers of the Mail &Guardian – and their partners – can get to see a preview of Anthony Mingella’s film of The English Patient, which received an impressive 12 Oscar nominations, before everyone else. Based on Michael Ondaatje’s Booker Prize-winning novel, the film stars Ralph Fiennes and Kristin Scott Thomas. The preview will […]
THEATRE: Sifiso Maseko SALAELO MAREDI, resident director at the Market Theatre for 1997, says: “I hope to make the Market more accessible to traditionally isolated persons. If I have my way, it will become like a home to these people.” His first production at the Market, Blackage, was inspired by an article on corruption in […]
There is something a little distasteful about the Independent Group’s “confession” to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission as to its sins during the apartheid era. Like its much-trumpeted “international advisory board” of consultants, the submission smacks more of a public relations exercise than a genuine contribution to South African journalism. The group’s apparent failure to […]
As the Grand Prix season opens in Melbourne on Sunday, Villeneuve has the hot car while frustrated Hill needs heavenly help to defend the title MOTORRACING:Maurice Hamilton IT is at times such as this that grand prix teams, struggling to make final preparations for the new season, remember 1989. Nigel Mansell had joined Ferrari and […]
THE ANGELLA JOHNSON INTERVIEW LEGEND has it that Modjadji, the rain queen, is not only the most powerful of all traditional healers but is also immortal. Like the Dalai Lama, Tibet’s spiritual leader, she is said to be reincarnated in a different body each lifetime. Charmaine Modjadji, shebeen queen of South Africa, may deny any […]
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 […]
Mungo Soggot OLIVER HILL, South Africa’s most wanted white-collar fugitive, could be back home in a matter of weeks, following the rejection this week by a London court of his appeal against extradition to South Africa. The court also torpedoed Hill’s attempts to further delay his return by denying him the right to appeal to […]
FINE ART:Hazel Friedman LAST year’s Unplugged exhibition will go down in South African art history as a supreme example of the “buddy system” at its worst. Initiated by artist Kendell Geers as a riposte to the traditional curatorial process – whereby the curator determines the content and presentation of an exhibition – Unplugged set itself […]
THEATRE:Andrew Wilson STEVE MARTIN’s award-winning play, Picasso at the Lapin Agile, currently running at the Civic Theatre, bears a marked resemblance to Nicholas Roeg’s brilliant 1985 film Insignificance, sharing not only the concept, but some of the characters. Working from Terry Johnson’s satirical script, Roeg’s film gathers together four prominent characters from the Fifties in […]
A joint-venture deal with Naledi Petroleum has exposed Sasol’s policy of taking over petrol stations ahead of deregulation, writes Mungo Soggot SASOL has been quietly buying up prime petrol station sites in Gauteng in anticipation of a relaxation of regulations that bar it from retailing fuel, the synthetic fuel giant confirmed this week. Sasol communications […]
Is there a place in the South African media for institutionalised ethnicity? Jacquie Golding-Duffy reports ‘WE are not anti-white, but pro-black,” says Abbey Makoe, chair of the steering committee of the Black Journalists Forum (BJF) – the lobby group recently launched and endorsed by Deputy President Thabo Mbeki and SABC chief executive Zwelakhe Sisulu. The […]
Gustav Thiel A RASTAFARIAN is taking the Law Society of Cape Town to court over its refusal to allow him to qualify as a lawyer because he has a criminal record for cannabis possession. The Law Society says it cannot allow Garreth Prince, who completed his legal studies at the University of the Western Cape […]
Mick Cleary OOPS! You’re barely round the first circuit of the interview and you’re off the track already. All those good intentions to steer a straight line along a route of technical interrogation, bluffing furiously about gear shifts, aerodynamic force, fuel loads, go up in smoke as you give into temptation and plough straight into […]
The media are less than honest in their statements to the truth commission regarding their role in apartheid, argues Guy Berger NEARLY nobody noticed when FWde Klerk told the truth commission last year that government disinformation “could have created a climate” allowing for gross human rights violations to occur. This surprise admission stands in contrast […]
RUGBY: Jon Swift TO call Auckland awesome is akin to predicting the onset of nightfall. It is on performance against the reigning Super 12 champions – even without skipper Zinzan Brooke – that other sides in the competition will be measured. Certainly, Helgard Muller’s Free State will be awaiting Friday’s opening game of a crowded […]
In a conversation with Benjamin Pogrund, Harry Oppenheimer reflects on his life in business and defends his companies’ stance on apartheid HARRY OPPENHEIMER carries his 88 years lightly. “I feel well and I enjoy life so I’m very lucky at my age,” he says. He’s a bit stooped and says his hearing is not what […]