Staff Reporter

Two key media figures are at each other’s throats prior to the truth commission’s probe into the press, writes Jacquie Golding-Duffy The Freedom of Expression Institute and its chair, Raymond Louw, have come under fire for volunteering to assist the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) in its investigation of the media. The Black Editors Forum […]

Despite a bad week, Bafana Bafana remain confident of a successful game against Zambia SOCCER: Andrew Muchineripi It has not been a good week for the South African World Cup soccer squad with Clive Barker in hospital, Helman Mkhalele nursing an ankle injury and Mark Fish flying back to Rome instead of Lusaka. But disappointing […]

Thousands of children have been recruited into a fearful army that claims inspiration from God, reports Anna Borzello in Gulu, Uganda IN northern Uganda, villagers do their best to follow the 11 commandments of Joseph Kony, altar-boy turned born-again guerrilla whose Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) is terrorising the countryside. The first 10 are as given […]

The proposed special deal for KwaZulu-Natal is a serious threat to the rule of law, says deputy chair Alex Boraine. Ann Eveleth reports KwaZulu-Natal’s “special amnesty” proposal would undermine the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s current amnesty process, promote a culture of impunity and pose a serious threat to the rule of law, the commission’s deputy […]

The Soweto String Quartet’s second album, Renaissance, is set to rocket the ensemble to international fame, writes GLYNIS O’HARA RIGHT now we’re living through South Africa’s Renaissance, say the Soweto String Quartet. “It’s in all aspects of life. It’s an awakening, a rebirth, as well as in the redefining of South African arts. Europe had […]

A senior South African journalist tells the story of how, as a young reporter in the apartheid era, he was delegated to act as a guide to Eartha Kitt, showing her around Cape Town. The reporter (white) was sitting in the back seat of a chauffeur-driven car with the great singer, lecturing her on the […]

Justin Arenstein The Mpumalanga Parks Board (MPB) has signed an agreement with a foreign conglomerate that contractually obliges it to support the full listing of the commercial rights to some of South Africa’s prime environmental assets on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE). Assets include the second-biggest canyon in the world, Blyde River Canyon, South Africa’s […]

SOCCER: Andrew Muchineripi South African soccer moves into the new year with one goal eclipsing all others ‘ qualification for the 1998 World Cup finals in France. After comfortably disposing of Malawi in a preliminary tie, the African Nations Cup holders found Zaire a very different proposition in Johannesburg during November. The Leopards from Central […]

Scientists made a giant leap this year in understanding the HIV virus, which u ncannily changes itself as it invades human bodies, writesLesley Cowling It’s taken more than a decade of concentrated study by thousands of scientists all over the world to begin to understand how HIV operates. Part of the probl em is that […]

This year, the Environmental Justice Networking Forum has come into its own, r eports Eddie Koch When Chris Albertyn was travelling around the country with a team of environme ntalists to research a new policy paper last year, he met Kraai van Niekerk, f ormer minister of agriculture, in Cape Town. Said Kraai: “You people […]

Thomas Khoza (above), former R15-a-month farmboy from Warmbaths, is a musician who busks on the streets of Johannesburg’s Yeoville. He was a pikinin carrying a white man’s lunch bag underground at Cooke 3 Secti on of the Randfontein gold mines when he was shot and severely wounded in a mi ner’s strike on Christmas Eve […]

Criminal sanction: Fighting crime is at the forefront of everybody’s minds – s ome do it with thepolice, while some have decided to go it alone Rehana Rossouw Father Christopher Clohesy’s life is filled with contradictions: he’s a white man but lives in destitute Mitchell’s Plain in Cape Town; he’s a supporter of Gun Free […]

the cultural year The best and the worst of the continuity presenters PLENTY happened in SABC television this year. We had a relaunch with an unwieldy Jumbo jet and some awkward, second-grade, politically-correct United States TV actors. Felicia Mabuza Suttle looked pleased with herself. Stevie Wonder was asked to comment on the quality of South […]

TENNIS:Jon Swift The revival of tennis has proved in a sporting season just what this country is capable of. From a base of minus zero a short time ago, the game has regenerated and is on the path back. The internal wranglings and factionalism — witness the unsavoury squabbles about the national manager at the […]

Greg Bowes It’s a rare pleasure these days to come across electronic music that isn’t bound to the latest dance floor fad or the newest pre-set sounds. In a market thoroughly saturated with soulless imitations of the last hit formula there are fortunately some techno pioneers who see past the music-by-numbers scenario. Because machines like […]

Vusi Mona Allegations that teachers are not being adequately included in discussions aro und South Africa’s new school curriculum, but are instead being caught up in c ommittees and bureaucracy, are dogging the vital rewriting process. The new curriculum, expected to be launched at the end of January, will be pha sed in by January […]

cricket: Jon Swift South African cricketers can truly be said to be in the process of charting new waters. To understand this, what goes on behind the scenes must be considered. The most public changes are in personnel at national and provincial levels. Less obvious are the growth of the development programme and the ongoing […]

Capetonian Nathan Zeno doesn’t recognise the seasons by the weather. He relies on esoteric signals THE Cape Town of summer is not the same as the Cape Town of winter. This may seem obvious to those who don’t live here. Otherwise we would be besieged all year by all of you. But it’s not just […]

Marion Edmunds reports on an old man who runs a pharmacy which occupies the ho ttest piece of undeveloped property in Camps Bay. But he’s not selling HE is not selling at any price. Not his pharmacy nor the fittings nor his flat above – although he is regularly pestered by developers. They’re willing to […]

Madeleine Wackernagel Sometimes it does not pay to take advice. Everyone I asked upon arriving in Johannesburg recommended I exchange my travellers’ cheques immediately; little did I know I could have virtually doubled my money 10 months later. And as the rand continued to fall and economic gloom set in, the question I often heard […]

Mungo Soggot THE Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA) warned this week the government h ad “no option” but to give the SABC the money it needed to survive. Councillor Lyndal Shope-Malofe said the IBA, which was charged with ensuring t he viability of the public broacaster, had urged Post, Telecommunications and Broadcasting Minister Jay Naidoo several […]

Mail & Guardian writers, photographers and cartoonists produced prolifically t his year – and won a number of awards You Have Been Warned (Viking), written by Mail & Guardian co-founder Irwin Man oim, covers the newspaper’s first turbulent decade. l Zapiro, aka Jonathan Shapiro, published Zapiro – The Madiba Years (David Phi lip), a collection […]

‘I am not made to report on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission,’ writes A ntjie Krog, who has been reporting on it for months. That job takes an awful toll The word truth makes me uncomfortable.mmmmmnAs recently as last week I had to do several retakes of a voice report for radio, because – after […]

Eddie Koch The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) went into its Christmas recess a fter a one-year performance that was “quite remarkable compared to other truth -seeking processes around the world”, says an international expert. Priscilla Hayner, an international researcher writing a book on truth commiss ions in various parts of the world, says it […]

With much change occurring in the print industry, editors have been playing the game of job-swapping, writes Jacquie Golding-Duffy Nineteen-ninety-six was the year of musical chairs in the media – particularly in the print media, where editors changed jobs in double-quick time. The game began in March when the then-Cape Argus newspaper’s long-serving editor, Andrew […]

Jacquie Golding-Duffy IN its report last month, the task group on government communications (Comtask), set up by Deputy President Thabo Mbeki, urged government departments to improve relations with the media and ensure speedy responses to queries. I can assure you that the Media Mad column, which appears regularly on the Antenna pages, received no speedy […]

President Nelson Mandela and Graa Machel, the widow of the late Mozambican pre sident Samora Machel, have been involved in a very public relationship. Kingsl ey Makhubela, chief of state visits in Mandela’s office and M-Net presenter Do reen Morris are expected to tie the knot in the near future. South African rug by wing […]

What’s green and crinkly and threatens civilisation as we know it? The all-conquering Hollywood dollar. Derek Malcolm takes a sceptical look back at the movies of 1996 I’VE recently seen, though you haven’t yet, Barbra Streisand’s The Mirror Has Two Faces, in which our beloved if narcissistic star is supposed to spend three-quarters of a […]

1996 was a big, exciting year for new South African music. Glynis O’Hara gives the run-down on some of the favourites There certainly was a plethora of South African material released this year and the new trend, kwaito, was responsible for wagon loads of it. Kwaito is South Africa’s version of house — contemporary disco […]

Black economic empowerment is taking place gradually, but a more holistic approach is needed, writes Madeleine Wackernagel The buzz-word of 1996 was BEE – black economic empowerment, epitomised by the Johnnic deal. Later, there was JCI, sold to Mzi Khumalo’s Capital Alliance with far less fanfare, but no less significance. The cynics would sneer that […]

>From the despair of a series defeat against New Zealand to the joy of an undefeated away tour, can South African rugby continue with its present management Rugby: Jon Swift this has been a year of personalities in rugby … the almost gloating shadow of Louis Luyt … the glowering countenance of Andre Markgraaff … […]

Over 20 000 people work as black hair stylists and their creative services are in great demand. Judith Watt reports on the growth of glamour coiffure IT is a common claim among South African whites that “blacks” are the people who really know about style. They say it, but how many of them really believe […]