Staff Reporter

A retrospective of Jrgen Schadeberg’s work over the last 40 years confirms his enduring photographic eye. HAZEL FRIEDMAN spoke to him IT takes a strange kind of eye to be able to see life constantly through a lens — a kind of nomadic outsider-looking-inside perspective and a remarkable degree of detached curiosity. Not to mention […]

Contenders for Gauteng’s only medium wave licence are eagerly awaiting the IBA’s decision, reports Jacquie Golding-Duffy THE Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA) faces a tough decision as the time draws near for it to award the single medium wave (MW) licence up for grabs in Gauteng. According to an IBA representative, the licence for Gauteng will […]

ART: Suzy Bell THE entire Victorian and Foreign collection should be sold,” said Andrew Verster with panache. “What?” shrieked the British Empire, “Has the man gone quite mad?” Certainly not. But have you walked into The “Pink Victorian Room” or “The Circular Gallery” lately? It reeks of colonialism — and we’re not just talking about […]

Jennifer Steyn, one of the UCT drama school’s 1980s `wunderclass’ and currently acting in Skylight, tells HAZELFRIEDMAN about her lessons in life `ACTUALLY, I know nothing about anything.” Jennifer Steyn runs a momentarily flustered hand through her hair. With an extraordinary combination of dizziness and down-to- earthness, she has just bee n providing me with […]

Jacquie Golding-Duffy THE Mail & Guardian 1996 Student Media Award for the best student newspaper was won by the University of Cape Town for its publication, Varsity. The newspaper won as it offered “the most diverse look at campus life”, with stories of the state of resident housing and controversies on campus. The judges included […]

An opportunity to show high-level commitment to Aids has been missed, say Mary Crew and James McIntyre TWO rumours circulated in the week preceding World Aids Day. The first was that President Mandela and Deputy President Mbeki would be joining Minister Zuma at the National Health World Aids Day rally in Bloemfontein. It was believed […]

Mail & Guardian Reporters TAIWAN on Thursday hit back at South Africa’s decision to cut diplomatic ties, announcing it would shelve most of its aid projects in South Africa and recall its ambassador. Foreign Minister John Chang told a press conference in Pretoria that 85% to 90% of its aid projects would only be resumed […]

Mungo Soggot EDWARD Dutton, the flamboyant Johannesburg businessman who fled his R205-million forex fraud trial to Australia three years ago, has been released from jail after a Sydney court ruled he should not be extradited to South Africa. South African officials working on the case are baffled by the outcome of the hearing which last […]

Hazel Friedman CULTURAL politics in Johannesburg is deadlocked while the city’s former director of culture, Christopher Till, awaits “clarification” on his future position. And unless the situation is sorted out soon it will jeopardise funds for the rapidly approaching 1997 Biennale. As a result, Danie Malan, who heads the Transitional Metropolitan Council (TMC) – which […]

Helen Meintjies and Robert Aitken MA DLADLA doesn’t complain much about the absence of refuse removal or the long queues to get water from one of the five standpipes in her shanty town. She prioritises a different concern: paraffin is expensive and getting more so. She lives in a shack settlement with high levels of […]

Andy Duffy A CRACK squad of advisers led by the Ministry of Finance’s highly-paid consultant Charles Stride has gone into Transnet to help fill the R12-billion hole in the parastatal’s pension fund. The ministry said this week Deputy Finance Minister Gill Marcus had recruited Stride following the roasting she gave Transnet in Parliament six weeks […]

This week’s guest writer Mandla Langa looks at one of the human tragedies behind taxi violence AT 45, Charles Z Dlamini can cram myriad lifetimes into his own uncertain one. His bloodshot eyes have that long-distant, unsurprised look reminiscent of habitual survivors. Descended from a branch of the royal Swazi house and raised in Mpumalanga, […]

A proposal to hold truth hearings into the media has provoked much argument, writes Jacquie Golding-Duffy THERE is consensus among editors that the media should be investigated for the role it played during the apartheid era, but there are differing opinions on whether the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) is the correct platform for the […]

Lynda Loxton SOUTH AFRICAN financial institutions are honing their investment skills in preparation for the lifting of the remaining exchange controls. More and more are taking advantage of the provision allowing them to invest 10% of their assets offshore by launching innovative funds that enable investors to gain exposure to foreign assets via their normal […]

Give the land back, or develop it? Cato Manor presents the Land Claims Court with its first dilemma. Ann Eveleth reports PENSIONERS Agrippa Cebekhulu (65), Albert Ngwane (67) and Johannes Dlamini (69) grew up side by side in a freehold section of Cato Manor known as Good Hope Estate, on the border of present-day Chesterville. […]

Chris Dunton and M&G reporters NOT even Britain’s publicity-hungry Booker Prize could have come up with the scandal that rocked the French literary world last week. Calixthe Beyala, winner of the 100000-franc Acadmie Franaise’s Grand Prix du Roman, was accused of plagiarising Ben Okri’s 1991 Booker winner, The Famished Road. Beyala denied plagiarism: “I know […]

HOW do fireworks work? And will they one day invent a noiseless firework that is “animal- friendly”? – Lee Scholtz, Westdene THE fireworks that dazzle us today have their origins in 12th-century China, where the explosive mixture of charcoal, sulphur and potassium nitrate that gives fireworks their “oomph” – known as “black powder”, because of […]

Heart problems threaten to cut the career of Africa’s top footballer short, but he is determined to play again SOCCER: Andrew Muchineripi WHEN Nwankwo Kanu was voted African Footballer of the Year this week his emotions would have been unusually mixed for someone following in the footsteps of Liberian legend George Weah. While the tall, […]

Mungo Soggot FINANCE WEEK has been buoying its circulation figures by sending about 2 000 copies of the publication each week to hotel chain City Lodge, which in exchange enjoys free advertising in the financial magazine. This means 15% of all Finance Week copies sold – R12 000 worth – are given away to readers. […]

Is there such a thing as international competitiveness? Paul Krugman thinks many of the arguments are bunk. Ben Laurance looks at his thesis DEBATES about international trade are, Paul Krugman of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology suggests, “a study in confusion and misconceptions, in which the `experts’ are usually misinformed about the most basic facts […]

end accounts Andy Duffy THE Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA) has been ordered to rework its year-end accounts after the auditor general uncovered glaring errors in its figures. The auditor general’s office, which is also investigating allegations of financial mismanagement at the organisation, told the IBA it would be futile to present its March 1996 figures […]

FINEART: Andrew Putter FOR just over a year now, a group of top- drawer young Cape Town artists have been working on a collaborative project, set to culminate in a mammoth installation/performance at the Castle this week. Called Sluice, the project grew out of collective interests in new ways of approaching artmaking – and shared […]

BEAUTIFUL CAPE TOWN: Fine Music “Voices” (GSE Claremont) PUT Emma Eenzi as Aida, Sally Presant as Carmen, and Aviva Pelham as Cherubino on a disc and you have not only a winner but also a historic document that captures the often under-appreciated artistry of these singers. As if that is not enough to tempt buyers, […]

Shirley Kossick THE LAW OF LOVE by Laura Esquivel(Chatto and Windus, R89,95) HERE’S the solution to your Christmas shopping dilemma if you’ve been hesitating between books and CDs. The Law of Love is a multi-media novel (the first, the publishers claim) which comes complete with a CD of Puccini arias and Mexican danzones, as well […]

As the Springboks face a French backlash in Paris, South Africa’s cricketers attempt to clinch a series triumph CRICKET:V Roger Prabasarkar ON Sunday December 8 the South African cricket team will take the first step to immortality. If Hansie Cronje becomes the first captain in the history of Test cricket to achieve the most difficult […]

Frederick Chiluba’s new government is increasingly embroiled in controversy, reports Anthony Kunda in Lusaka EVIDENCE has emerged from election results released by the government-constituted Zambian Electoral Commission that the outcome of the polls on November 18 may well have been fixed before the polling day. There are several instances of strange and inexplicable uniformity in […]

Dan Wylie LIGHT VERSE AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL by Gus Ferguson (David Philip, R29) WITH a bit of selective quotation, you could even argue that Gus Ferguson is a serious poet: Life is but a gift of time Spent in gathering evidence Against the summons for the crime Of wasting that inheritance. Or, […]

Genetically engineered vegetables may make the scientists and farmers happy – but do people want to eat them? Michael Durham reports from London AFTER years of tinkering in vast laboratories and locked greenhouses, agrochemical companies are ready to unleash their discoveries on the world: genetically changed plants and vegetables, programmed by the addition or subtraction […]

The intitiative to form a new Afrikaans organisation drew the support of the Afrikaans establishment – but not its traditional critics, writes Rehana Rossouw CONRAD SIDEGO, former South African ambassador to Denmark, assured the last speaker at a meeting of Afrikaans people at the weekend that the colour of her skin had nothing to do […]

Zimbabwe faces embarrassment over illegal ivory sales, reports Iden Wetherell in Harare ZIMBABWE’S record of ivory management has been described as “grossly inadequate” by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites) just six months before the Geneva-based organisation is due to hold a major conference in Harare. The Zimbabwean government has said it […]

Ann Eveleth KING Goodwill Zwelithini pulled out of a consortium bidding for KwaZulu-Natal’s new private sound radio station last week because he didn’t know what he was getting into, say royal family members. Zwelithini mysteriously dropped his 5% stake and yanked his endorsement for Radio One – one of two consortiums bidding for the station […]

Suzy Bell WHETHER it’s the tender image of Katrina Thomas gathering her goats or the anxious look in Freddie Bosman’s eyes on the bus journey towards his beloved home, Riemvasmaak, after spending 20 years in the Ciskei, some pictures do speak a thousand words. Winner of a Mother Jones International Documentary Award (1993) for his […]