Staff Reporter

SOCCER: Andrew Muchineripi National coach Andre Markgraaff dropped idol Francois Pienaar and his life turned miserable overnight as a rugby-obsessed country vented its anger against him. Soccer counterpart Clive Barker could risk a similar backlash if he omits off-form midfielder Doctor Khumalo from the World Cup team to face Zambia in Lusaka on January 11. […]

As tertiary education cuts loom, University of the North lecturers feud and Wits’s June Sinclair departs Disadvantaged students could continue to be left out, report Joshua Amupadhi and Stuart Hess Thousands of school-leavers hoping to further their studies next year could find themselves on the streets following the government’s drastic cut in bursaries. A string […]

Anthony Egan TREKKING: In Search of the Real South Africa ‘by Denis Beckett ‘(Penguin, R59,99) One of the (few) popular and quality local television programmes currently showing is the quirky, opinionated, sometimes angry but always watchable Beckett’s Trek. Ajournalist with attitude, Denis Beckett takes often all-too-close looks at the realities and foibles of contemporary South […]

Mail & Guardian Reporter THE Transvaal Bench will be on the light side next year after the Judicial Services Commission last week rejected five of the seven candidates gunning for the division’s four vacancies. The commission selected only two of the applicants: Ivor Schwartzman, SC, and S Snyders, SC, who will become the division’s third […]

Following revelations of irregularities at a Cape medical ‘aid company, the Department of Health plans to fight corruption in the industry, writes Marion Edmunds The Department of Health is planning a crackdown on corruption in the billion-rand medical insurance industry, introducing strict new laws and policing as a priority next year. Sources say last week’s […]

STEPHEN GRAYoffers his own view of the late Sir Laurens van der Post ‘And so there then I stood on the night of 21 August 1945, in the street in Bandoeng where my book The Night of the New Moon ended …’ ‘As I stood there watching my men …’ Because I had skipped the […]

Joshua Amupadhi WITS University Deputy Vice-Chancellor for Student Affairs June Sinclair is to leave the administration at the end of this month, after failing in her bid to win the most powerful office on the campus. Sinclair, defeated in October in the contest to be Wits’ next vice-chancellor, said this week she would not ask […]

Angella Johnson A GANG of con artists has ripped off senior citizens to the tune of hundreds of thousands of rands after accosting them in shopping centres and offering to double their savings instantly. Police say they are baffled that so many old people have fallen prey to the scam in Gauteng, the Free State […]

TELEVISION: Andrew Worsdale All you film-makers out there! Dust off those old video-cassettes and film reels ‘ the SABC might buy them. The three-part series Matchbox City plays on SABC3 at 9.45pm on Sunday December 22. Matchbox City was initiated in 1990 by left-wing group Free Filmmakers as a hands-on training project for its stable […]

ART: Dennis Mair At the Sluice event, what started out as bits of plastic and hose pipe transformed into an interactive art experience for the masses. The group of young artists got their shit together last week and mutated the B-Block at the Castle of Good Hope into a pleasure ride for anyone to absorb. […]

James Meek in Moscow MOST Muscovites, cynical by nature, suspected the giant billboards were a trick to make them buy something they did not want. Others saw the adverts, featuring a beautiful woman gazing adoringly at all and sundry with the message ‘I love you’, as the latest wheeze by the mayor, Yuri Luzhkov, to […]

Ann Eveleth The special amnesty mooted for KwaZulu-Natal may help African National Congress chairman Jacob Zuma’s bid for the party’s deputy presidency, but the idea is still highly controversial within ANC ranks. ANC leaders say details of the proposal to grant a special amnesty to KwaZulu-Natal’s warlords has not been discussed by either the party’s […]

A unique project has ‘saved a little girl from a lifetime in hospital, reports Marion Edmunds The evil has for once been taken out of Ondine’s Curse, thanks to a determined mother and the Red Cross Children’s Hospital in Cape Town. They have saved a ‘cursed’ toddler from life in a hospital ward. On Wednesday, […]

Joshua Amupadhi The University of the North has appointed a commission of inquiry to investigate a long-running feud at its Unin Qwa Qwa campus, which came to a head last week when three lecturers exchanged blows. The commission comes more than a year after students, workers and lecturers first demanded independent investigations into allegations of […]

DANCE: Andrew Wilson When you open the cupboard and Christmas comes tumbling out again this year, and you’ve had it with tinsel and tides of Santa Clauses, get to the dance factory at the Newtown Precinct for a double tot of the real thing, where over forty inner-city primary school children from Fairview to Fordsburg […]

Your front-page headline ‘Top firms in huge medical aid scam’ (December 13 to 19) is not really news. The whole medical aid business is one huge scam. Why should anyone be forced to help pay for the sleeping-pill and Prozac addictions of others? And why should anyone have to pay for the consequences of the […]

Police claim that a commander tried to get serious charges dropped against relatives, reports Angella Johnson Fresh evidence of police involvement in top crime syndicates emerged this week with allegations that Charlie Landman, suspended acting commander of the Brixton Murder and Robbery Unit, has close links with two brothers said to be among South Africa’s […]

Charl Blignaut SAY what you like about the Tevin Campbell concert at the Standard Bank arena in Johannesburg last weekend, the highlight of the evening had to be the crowd. Mingling at the slightly tame Radio Metro bash beforehand (I mean, what radio station hangs banners saying ‘Where the music talks’ and then doesn’t play […]

Do you think there is a significant difference between this on the one hand: ‘Minister suggests that this movement must be broken and the police must perhaps act a bit more drastically and hard-handedly which would bring with it more deaths’, and this on the other hand: ‘Minister suggests that this movement must be broken […]

After years of civil war, Mozambique’s hydro-electric plant is being refurbished for R575-million. Max Gebhardt reports For nearly 12 years, as civil war ravaged our eastern neighbour, five massive hydro-electric generators, with the power to light up a small city, have been sitting idle ‘ waiting for the moment when they could return to operation. […]

Anthoni van Nieuwkerk In 1996, South Africa’s international relations went on a roller-coaster ride. The country’s multi-lateral approach to global affairs produced a number of successes, the high point of which was probably in April, when South Africa hosted the ninth meeting of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development. Also significant is the […]

A former commander ‘of the notorious unit has ‘been promoted to lead ‘the SANDF, reports ‘Ann Eveleth A FORMER commander of 32 Battalion, the crack unit recently linked to train violence, is set to take over the South African National Defence Force’s KwaZulu-Natal operations. Colonel Jan Houghardt ended his stint in South Africa’s dirty wars […]

There were stories to remember and some that editors just wanted to forget. Jacquie Golding-Duffy reports on the highs and lows in the media industry This was certainly an eventful year for the print media, with several editors admitting to a series of high notes as well as major booboos. While some editors had inaccurate […]

An exhibition of mostly linocut prints celebrating the new Bill of Rights opened in Durban last week. SUZY BELL reports After trampling over every single clause of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights during the apartheid era, it’s fitting that South Africans can finally express their newly found freedom in art, by celebrating the […]

As the fight for the commercial TV licence heats ‘up, bidders are closing their doors to the press. ‘Gillian Farquhar and Jacquie Golding-Duffy report Bids have already begun for the commercial television licence to be awarded by the Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA), but most contenders are shrouding their plans in secrecy as the race heats […]

William Kentridge’s new multi-media production will employ Alfred Jarry’s despicable Ubu. HAZELFRIEDMAN spoke to him He is the grotesque personification of human greed and ignorance. And now, 100 years after his theatrical birth in Europe with the unforgettable Merdre (shite) Ubu, the scandalous creation of 19th century poet Alfred Jarry has been adopted by South […]

This will have to be a hurried letter. Some people can begin relaxing at this time of the year, but not the president of the republic. First of all it was the Free State, which I thought I had sorted out until Friday morning when Ivy came banging on my door, sobbing and wailing that […]

Ann Eveleth With the first anniversary of last year’s Christmas Day floods in Pietermaritzburg looming, much remains to be done to prevent a repeat of the tragedy that cost 169 lives and left nearly 6 000 families homeless. And the National Disaster Relief Fund, which has already spent its R14,7-million budget for the year, will […]

Iden Wetherell in Harare Despite growing demands in Zimbabwe for political reform, President Robert Mugabe has declared that his ruling Zanu-PF party will continue to take precedence over Parliament as far as governing the country goes. Mugabe slapped down members of Parliament who had been calling for change ahead of last weekend’s Zanu-PF conference held […]

Bronwen Jones The triumvirate of car hire power is set to be broken with the re-emergence of international rival Hertz into the overcrowded South African market in 1997, but industry insiders already expect the company to tout the same prices as current leaders Budget, Avis and Imperial. Nicola, who answers the toll-free line at Avis, […]

Ruaridh Nicoll in Kinshasa reports on the return of President Mobutu Sese Seko after months of convalescence in France EMERGING on to the steps of his chartered plane, Mobutu Sese Seko, in a leopard-skin hat, looked out happily on the country he has pillaged for 30 years. He was greeted by an enormous roar. Thousands […]

Benjamin Pogrund COSTA GAZIDES has travelled a long political road from the days when, 32 years ago, he was charged alongside Braam Fischer with membership of the underground Communist Party, to last weekend when he was a delegate to the Pan Africanist Congress conference. The Sharpeville killings in 1960 were a first turning point in […]