Staff Reporter

Confusion surrounds the sale of Transcell after Stella Sigcau stepped in to prevent the deal taking place, reports Max Gebhardt Privatisation has been dealt yet another blow following the intervention by the Minister of Public Enterprises, Stella Sigcau, in the proposed sale of Transnet’s loss-making cellular phone division to MTN. A ministry representative issued a […]

bloom Brett Fromson YOU’VE heard of the Nasdaq Stock Market, but how about the Rasdaq? The Rasdaq is Romania’s new stock market; it is one of dozens of financial bazaars to spring up worldwide in the thaw following the end of the Cold War. As communist and socialist governments have fallen, the new regimes have […]

The problem with Wits’s transparent process for choosing a new vice-chancellor is that there was no Plan B Mungo Soggot THE bombshell which Sam Nolutshungu dropped on the University of the Witwatersrand this week – that he would not take up the post of vice-chancellor – had as much to do with his nerve as […]

Anthony Egan THE SPIRITS SPEAK: One Woman’s Mystical Journey into the African Spirit World by Nicky Arden (Henry Holt, R103,95) BORN in Durban, Nicky Arden emigrated to the United States in the 1960s, disillusioned with apartheid South Africa. On a visit home, she met a sangoma who told her she was being called by the […]

Charl Blignaut The longest-running theatre project in South Africa, the Market Theatre Laboratory’s Theatresports, staged weekly in Johannesburg, is being videotaped live and will be broadcast as a 13-part series on SABC3 from mid-1997. Following a growing world trend since the late 1970s, the Market introduced the comedy concept in 1991 and it has continued […]

Joshua Amupadhi Professor Sam Nolutshungu’s decision not to lead Wits into the next century caps a trying 14 months at one of South Africa’s pre-eminent seats of learning. October 1995: The Makgoba Affair. A group of senior academics accuses deputy vice- chancellor William Makgoba of mismanagement and of embellishing his curriculum vitae, sparking a row […]

Stephen Moss THE line between pop and classical music was redrawn last week with the unveiling of the first Classical Crossover Chart. Compilations dominate the new chart. Number one is Best Opera Album in the World … Ever, followed by The Greatest Classical Movie Album, and The Number One Classical Album. The listing was introduced […]

Jacquie Golding-Duffy speaks to the people behind the sweeping changes in current affairs programmes The launch this week of a new current affairs programme – Question and Answer (Q&A) – marks the revamp taking place within the SABC’s television news department. It has taken the new head of SABC-TV’s Current Affairs division, Sarah Crowe, less […]

If you take your fashion lead from Britain, this is what the stylish will be wearing in 1997, according to SUSANNAH FRANKEL THIS year will go down in history as the year British fashion came into its own. John Galliano unveils his first couture collection for Christian Dior later this month; 27-year-old Alexander McQueen will […]

Marion Edmunds and Rehana Rossouw CABINET ministers are likely to come under fire from the African National Congress’s senior cadres this weekend over government failings in meeting its most ambitious election promise – a better life for all. It is difficult to divine how bitter the discussions at the lekgotla, which began on Thursday, will […]

Highveld Stereo’s new managers are grappling with change, reports Jacquie Golding-Duffy Former Highveld Stereo managing director Eon de Vos has left the radio station after an association of 17 years. De Vos and some of the new owners of Highveld differed on the strategy that should be used to take Highveld into the next century. […]

Paul Brown in London SHELL, which has been wrestling with a multi-million pound problem of what to do with its giant Brent Spar oil storage platform since Greenpeace stopped it being dumped in the sea in 1995, this week awarded six companies contracts worth more than $1,5-million to develop proposals for its disposal. Two groups […]

Four years after the Zambian national side was wiped out in an air disaster, the players’ widows are living in hopeless poverty while the government refuses to reveal the cause of the crash. Tim Exton reports LAST weekend thousands of fans jammed their way into Independence Stadium, a decaying concrete bowl perched on a windswept […]

Marion Edmunds President Nelson Mandela last year considered sending Dr Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri to Burundi as a special envoy, to dispense advice and represent South Africa in the Great Lakes crisis. Instead, he sent her to a trouble-spot nearer home – to the Free State as premier, to pour oil on the troubled waters there. Matsepe-Casaburri […]

Apple is arming itself to fight future commercial wars. Jack Schofield reports from London IN 1991, Macintosh evangelist Guy Kawasaki wrote in his Macworld column: “Our greatest technical challenge is creating a computer that leapfrogs Macintosh just as Macintosh leapfrogged the IBM PC … In the next five to seven years Macintosh technology will be […]

James Lamont tells Jacquie Golding-Duffy that fellow editors cannot afford not to take him seriously, despite his age He is young and overly cautious, say some. Others argue that his track record is unimpressive and does not qualify him to sit at the helm of Business Report. But 28- year-old James Lamont, the newly appointed […]

Amid new allegations from air force officers, the defence force responds to reports on racism, writes Rehana Rossouw SOUTH Africa’s black top guns have blasted their commanders, claiming the air force is as racist as the army. Last week, a report in the Mail & Guardian highlighted problems in the integration of the South African […]

several instances in which executives get their way for no apparent reason other than their high status, with lesser status executives showing the same deference of young roosters making way for the cock-of- the-walk. One study reported that when managers of a company targeted for a takeover had lower status than outside directors of the […]

Boris Becker is devoted to tennis and to his family. While one is threatened by age and injury, the other is threatened by racism and hate. Stephen Bierley reports THERE is a thin stream of fear that constantly trickles through the minds of all the world’s top sportsmen and women. Pressure, stress, anxiety, apprehension, loss […]

The truth commission has released details of the Steyn Report, concealed since 1992 – and it contains startling disclosures. Stefaans BrUmmer reports FORMER state president FW de Klerk entrusted action on the elusive Steyn Report, which linked the apartheid military to “third force” activities, to three top military officials who were themselves implicated – including […]

the past? Brandon Hamber The kitchen of a small house in downtown So Paulo, Brazil, is the meeting place of the Comisso de Familiares de Mortos e Desaparecidos Politicas (Commission of the Families of Political Murder Victims and the Disappeared), an organisation of family members whose loved ones were killed during the military dictatorship in […]

It’s no use just shouting from the sidelines about the threat to the National Symphony Orchestra, argues Bongani Ndodana ONE of the sad legacies of apartheid cultural policy was the false sense of security it brought to the arts. Provincial performing arts councils were formed and theatres, opera houses and concert halls erected as if […]

The making of Evita turned a country upside down. Is it any wonder Madonna and Alan Parker tried to stop CLAUDIA NYE exposing their shenanigans? HOME sweet home. I was back in Argentina to make a documentary about Alan Parker’s Evita. It was a dream come true. Eva Peron was the most important woman in […]

The svelte HAZEL FRIEDMAN goes out and gorges herself on Feedback Andrew Buckland’s mother would be forgiven for thinking that maybe, just maybe, her multi-talented son harbours repressed feelings of hostility towards her. I mean, carving up your mother’s corpse and turning her anatomical parts – breasts, boep, bum ‘n’ all – into gastronomical delights […]

Charl Blignaut SOUTH AFRICAN music videos have once again emerged in competition as the cream of the crop in Africa. Six of the nine videos nominated for the R57 000 Best Music Video/Clip from Africa prize (Francophone countries excluded as they have their own award) at the highly influential annual Cannes Midem awards, hail from […]

What do falling sperm counts mean for human survival? Robin McKie and Euan Ferguson report from London IF there’s a subject guaranteed to raise a puerile snicker, then sperm – and its fate – have been sure-fire winners down the years. Yet sperm is the stuff upon which our survival depends. Recent confirmation that supplies […]

If you want to stick your fingers up the nose of the biggest guy on the block, you must at least have a good reason for risking a bruising. Pious declarations about the sovereign right to sell weapons of destruction to whomsoever we choose, or solidarity with that noted democrat Hafez al-Assad, do not justify […]

Only one research body managed to avoid a government funding cut, reports Lesley Cowling The Foundation for Research Development (FRD) has been rated top of the science councils for its research support division, and the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) has ranked last. The ratings, in points out of 10, were determined by a panel […]

HAZEL FRIEDMAN reports on a stormy debate raging in Grahamstown around the appointment of a foreigner as the new head of Rhodes University’s fine arts department ‘The Department of Foreign Relations.” That’s what angry staff and students have dubbed the Fine Arts Department at Rhodes University. They are reacting to the controversial appointment of British […]

A clash between Kaizer Chiefs and Orlando Pirates is always full of drama SOCCER: Andrew Muchineripi IN Glasgow it’s Rangers and Celtic, in Liverpool Everton and Liverpool, in London Arsenal and Tottenham, in Milan AC and Inter, in Cairo Zamalek and Al-Ahly, and in South Africa Kaizer Chiefs and Orlando Pirates. There is nothing to […]

Amid the changes in the judiciary, an old- style attitude still exists among some judges. Three months as an acting judge was a learning experience for academic and commentator Dennis Davis THE demand for the transformation of the South African judiciary has become almost as plastic a concept as that of the rainbow nation. That […]

The controversial Syrian arms deal seems to have been leaked in an attempt to scupper it, reports Stefaans Brmmer THE government’s handling of the partially approved R3-billion arms deal with Syria has exposed deep divisions in official thinking on the crucial foreign policy area of arms control – and the leak of Cabinet minutes appeared […]