Staff Reporter

IT may be that President Nelson Mandela is genuine in his desire to draw other parties into his Cabinet and we should accept at face value his statement that there is a great deal of talent in all parties which can contribute to government. But however benign his motivation, the effect will be malevolent: other […]

SA musicians have come together to relaunch the main stage at Johannesburg’s Market Theatre. We profile who’s who of the old and the new – and look at why they’re making waves Maria McCloy on Kwaito CONTRARY to what he said in the press over the past two weeks, Arthur Mafokate, kwaito star and owner […]

The officer handling a rape case on Robben Island this week was himself accused of rape six years ago, report Rehana Rossouw and Gustav Thiel The police officer investigating the rape on Robben Island of political activist Nomboniso Gasa this week was himself accused of rape six years ago. Captain Kevin Jones was tried in […]

Ann Eveleth ESTCOURT health officials are investigating the circumstances behind the bizarre overnight consignment of large quantities of meat, eggs, milk and other perishable foodstuffs destined for Estcourt Hospital to a local mortuary this week. Regional health services director Thoko Mtshali visited the hospital on Wednesday to open the investigation. She said staff were disgusted […]

Angella Johnson REPORTED incidents of rape in Johannesburg went up 64% in the last half of 1996 compared with the previous year, according to police figures which were due to be published this week but have been witheld by National Police Commissioner George Fivaz. The report, which was obtained by the Mail & Guardian, and […]

Certain TV programmes directed at children have provoked outrage from the public. Gillian Farquhar reports RECENT complaints lodged with the Broadcasting Complaints Commission of South Africa (BCCSA) have once again raised the controversial issue of who or what dictates the parameters of programme content for child viewers. Some of the most serious complaints received by […]

A TICK that has a toxin in its saliva that can kill animals may also have, in this secretion, a compound that can be used to treat human diseases. The Sandtampan tick, common to the arid regions of the Northern Cape, lives, like most ticks, on the blood of its host. So when it attaches […]

Imaginative alternatives are needed to deal with poverty, argues Jeremy Baskin. And he has a particularly bold one to offer UNEMPLOYMENT and poverty are arguably the biggest challenges facing South Africa. And yet there is a startling paucity of ideas on how to tackle them. Certainly there are lots of specific ideas that could make […]

THE extraordinary Cabinet meeting this week in which ministers stood up and applauded a “breakthrough” in Aids research raises intriguing questions about Health Minister Nkosazana Zuma’s approach to the crisis. Still smarting from the R14,2-million Sarafina II debacle, Zuma turned down the scientists’ request for funding from her department late last year, claiming she could […]

Stefaans Brmmer DEFENCE Secretary Pierre Steyn came under intense pressure from the defence establishment after the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s public release of details from the “third force” report which Steyn made in 1992. After the truth commission bombshell last week, vultures gathered to pick De Klerk’s political bones – how else could it be […]

Scientists gathered in Grahamstown this week to discuss the invisible world around us. Lesley Cowling reports MALARIA was the disease that in colonial times led to West Africa being dubbed “the white man’s graveyard”. The discovery of the white powder that put a check on it – quinine – helped the European powers to conquer […]

Mungo Soggot SACKED Transnet executive director Sipho Nyawo has launched a legal attack against the parastatal, Public Enterprises Minister Stella Sigcau and the retired judge who presided over an internal inquiry about him. Nyawo was dismissed from his R830 000 job last year after Judge John Trengove found him guilty of 65 charges of credit […]

THE government’s efforts to curtail the activities of Executive Outcomes (EO) – the South African company which appears to be running a booming business in the export of mercenaries and ancillary services – are understandable, but should perhaps be the subject of more public debate before legislation is passed. There are a number of reasons […]

Independent auditors have been called in to examine the Educational Opportunities Council’s accounts, following reports of mismanagement, writes Andy Duffy ONE of the country’s top funding organisations for students has been hit by allegations of mismanagement, with its chief accused of lending donors’ cash to her closest friend. The Educational Opportunities Council, which channels about […]

Justin Arenstein DISSENT over the Mpumalanga Parks Board’s (MPB) decision to place its prime nature reserves in the hands of the shadowy Dubai- based Dolphin Group deepened this week with the resignation of one of the provincial parks board’s most influential members. John Hanks, who is also executive director of Worldwide Fund for Nature South […]

Jim Day The bar in what used to be the Quirinale Hotel, with its zebra-striped walls and languidly spinning fans, lies quiet and empty. Gone are the hotel’s notorious days of pulsing musical acts that played on the elevated stage, the chance of picking up a prostitute, scoring some coke or rubbing shoulders with agents […]

Bafana Khumalo on Rebecca Malope `I always wanted to be singer, ever since I was a child,” she responds to my first question as she stretches her black leather-clad legs across to the coffee table in front of us in the offices of her record company. She is Rebecca Malope and this always “wanting to […]

The run-up to the ANC’s provincial conference has spawned new tensions, reports Rehana Rossouw IN another salvo fired at the African National Congress’sleadership, the branch members in the Free State town of Bothaville this week condemned national leaders’ “arrogance” and nominated former premier Terror Lekota for the position of provincial chairman. The ANC’s Bloemfontein branch […]

Gustav Thiel FOLLOWING bomb blasts at two homes of people linked to People Against Gangsterism and Drugs (Pagad) in Cape Town this week, observers warned the organisation was creating an environment in which gangs could flourish. Pagad could end up promoting what it is trying to destroy, warned Don Pinnock, a former University of Cape […]

Will Namibia’s President Sam Nujoma change the Constitution to suit himself? Graham Hopwood reports from Windhoek THERE is growing speculation in Namibia that President Sam Nujoma will not stand down as president in 1999 as demanded by the country’s Constitution, but run for a third term in office. Support for Nujoma to run for another […]

Zambia’s president is moving from controversy to controversy, reports Anthony Kunda in Lusaka ZAMBIAN President Frederick Chiluba has suspended a distinguished high court Judge, Kabazo Chanda, who has a history of criticising the president and the country’s poor human rights record. Chiluba has refused to disclose reasons for the suspension. According to Article 98 Section […]

John Daniszewski in Cairo SUDANESE rebels claimed this week to have killed hundreds of government troops and pushed to within 65km of a key hydroelectric dam in a mushrooming military campaign to topple Sudan’s Islamic government, long criticised internationally as a sponsor of global terrorism. The offensive that began two weeks ago has spread quickly […]

Squatters at Cape Town’s Waterfront could go to the Constitutional Court to fight their eviction, reports Gustav Thiel NEARLY 300 squatters living next to a proposed new entrance to the upmarket Victoria & Alfred Waterfront in Cape Town could force the Constitutional Court to assess the constitutionality of the Prevention of Illegal Squatting Act. According […]

Max Gebhardt FEARS are growing that South African Breweries (SAB) may have to offload troubled retail subsidiary OK Bazaars after years spent trying to turn the operation around. The group, whose interests also include beer, windscreens and men’s clothing, attempted this week to scotch growing market speculation that the OK is flying a For Sale […]

SABC this week hastily unbanned a Prophets of da City video after it won a prestigious international award.Charl Blignaut reports CAPE Flats hip-hop outfit Prophets of da City scooped the prize for Best Music Video/Clip from Non-Francophone Africa at the prestigious annual Cannes Midem international music awards this week. But, while in France a clip […]

Mark Tran in New York Banc One, one of the United States’s top regional banks, this week vaulted into the top tier of US credit card companies by announcing the acquisition of First USA for $7,5-billion. The deal will make Banc One the third biggest credit card issuer behind Citicorp and MBNA with $33-billion in […]

`I don’t think I’ve ever seen a player at 20 have so much’ – Bobby Robson on Barcelona’s boy wonder Ronaldo, who this week was named world player of 1996 SOCCER: Christopher Clarey RONALDO may or may not be the next Pele, Diego Maradona or Marco van Basten. How can anyone know for certain what […]

BASKETBALL: Ian Katz TO the uninitiated spectator, basketball often seems like a game in which scoring points is simply too easy. With teams typically sinking more than 40 baskets per game, individual feats of brilliance tend to get lost in a blur of attacks and counter-attacks. There is hardly time to savour a gravity-defying dunk […]

AMONG all the miniscule creatures that live around us, invisible to the human eye, is a strange, rod-shaped bacterium called Thiobacillus ferrooxidans. It does not cause disease, cannot pollute the environment and is happiest in an extremely acidic environment where it can “eat” the minerals in rock. It is these creatures (and their relatives) that […]

In which NATHAN ZENO gets to grips with the rarefied world of Cape Town models and their photographers 1. A picture … (in which Nathan tries to understand the reality of being a fashion photographer in South Africa) It’s not so much that the standard of fashion photography in South Africa is bad, it’s just […]

Israel’s political storms have put radical economic changes on the back burner, writes Alex Brummer ISRAEL’S economy appears intent on mimicking the Italian model. Despite political assassination, terrorist bombings and reprisals, a soldier running amok on the West Bank and a government, under Binyamin Netanyahu, apparently determined to win prizes for impetuousness and incompetence, the […]

Rebecca Smithers and Owen Bowcott THE ambitions of Princess Diana to become an ambassador for Britain suffered a severe setback during her visit to Angola this week after she was accused of straying into the political arena by failing to back the British government’s policy in her call for a worldwide ban on anti-personnel landmines. […]