Staff Reporter

Colin Blane in London WHEN Ethiopia’s long civil war reached a climax in 1991, cameraman Mohamed “Mo” Amin, who died at the age of 52 in the hijacked Ethiopian airliner crash off the Comoros Islands last weekend, was filming the rebel takeover of Addis Ababa and the shelling of the imperial palace. Mo had dramatic […]

South Africa’s labour market is labelled `inflexible’. The facts refute this, says the ILO’s Guy Standing IN the1990s, most governments are almost prisoners of international opinion, even in medium-sized countries such as South Africa. Economic policy is determined not only by realities, but by impressions that filter through a small community of commentators. Those in […]

A witness’s life was endangered when Attorney General Tim McNally released her from the state protection programme, writes Ann Eveleth THE family of a South Coast witness to violence this week accused KwaZulu-Natal Attorney General Tim McNally of endangering her life. The witness – a former Inkatha Freedom Party member who turned state’s evidence early […]

A new government approach to NGOs is needed, argues Ben Turok on the eve of NGO Week AS the non-governmental organisation (NGO) movement prepares for the celebration of NGO Week nationwide, we have to admit that the new South Africa owes the movement an apology. It has to be acknowledged that the consolidation of democratic […]

IVY MATSEPE-CASABURRI might want to ask herself whether she wants to be made premier of the Free State in the current circumstances – when she is getting the job because of the dismissal of a highly respected politician who won the post through the normal democratic procedures. But, if she still does want the job, […]

This week’s British Budget is one of the most cautious in electioneering history as the Tories bank on strong economic growth to keep them in power, writes Alex Brummer THE central assertion of Kenneth Clarke’s Budget strategy – that his tight fiscal stand removes the need for higher interest rates – does not stand up […]

Amy Lawrence WHEN World Footballer of the Year George Weah considered boycotting an exhibition match in America, it was no prima donna tantrum. Weah’s motives to pull out of a game were based on global emotions. When he presses his talented feet on to a football pitch, he is as much ambassador for Liberia as […]

Stephen Gray NOT WITHOUT LAUGHTER by Langston Hughes (Scribners, R44,95) WITH his Collected Poems in two volumes recently published in the United States, the work of Langston Hughes (1902-67) is set for a revival. The exhaustive biography of him by Arnold Rampersad is in paperback as well, spurring reprints of Hughes’s work, most of which […]

THEATRE:Suzy Bell HE whacks unsuspecting kiddies on the head with a plastic baseball bat, offers them half-eaten rotten apples as if they were champagne truffles, and munches on sticky green spaghetti worms found in old tins of dog food. “Yech!” Screech the kids, but of course they love it. They love anything gross, obscene and […]

Jacquie Golding-Duffy DEPUTY President Thabo Mbeki’s Task Group on Government Communications (Comtask) this week tabled a hard-hitting report challenging government to revamp its internal communications departments, making them more flexible and less bureaucratic. It also recommends that the government funds the SABC and Channel Africa, the external service which carries news from across Africa in […]

There are many trouble spots on a tour of India, the worst of which are cuisine, toilets, travel and practice facilities CRICKET:V Roger Prabasarkar SOUTH AFRICANS in India seem to be rather unpopular with their countrymen at present, which seems unusual. The rigours of a tour to India usually unite a nation in sympathy at […]

Mail & Guardian Reporter AN attorney who achieved his long-held ambition to appear in the supreme court has laid defamation charges against a judge who criticised him for wearing a light-grey suit. Robert Chalom, an attorney who practices in the Johannesburg suburb of Bruma, told the Mail & Guardian this week he had laid the […]

Lesley Cowling THE Department of Education is testing new ways of implementing science and technology education at schools, an area that recent research has revealed is seriously inadequate. South African standard five and six pupils came bottom of the class in the Third International Mathematics and Science Study -published last week – which tested students […]

Angella Johnson THE woman entrusted with heading a government agency to advise small businesses is wanted by Swaziland police for allegedly misappropriating R211 000 of foreign donated funds intended to build township houses, it was claimed this week. Nonhlahla June Mkhwanazi, who has only held the post of chief executive officer of Ntsika Enterprise Promotion […]

Protesters gathered in the Free State this week to call for the reinstatement of Terror Lekota as premier of the province. One of them spoke to Rehana Rossouw DESPITE the rain and the chilly weather on Wednesday, four busloads of elderly Free State residents stood outside the provincial government offices to protest the African National […]

Ann Eveleth THE “mysterious” exclusion of a prominent Nigerian from the search for a new English department head has divided academic staff at the University of Zululand. African literature specialist Professor Ramanas Egudu is lauded by his supporters at Unizulu as a “world-renowned scholar and expert on African poetry and oral traditions”. He was one […]

apartheid The truth commission has been asked to investigate the role English-language papers played in apartheid, reports Rehana Rossouw ENGLISH-language newspapers might have been regarded as liberal during the apartheid era, but some of their editors had “bent over backwards” to accommodate police in suppressing the truth about human rights abuses, journalists claimed this week. […]

Jacquie Golding-Duffy TELEVISION news has an average of six Audience Ratings (ARs) and just manages to slip into the All Media and Product Survey (AMPS) figures of the top 10 television programmes on the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) channels. But six ARs, according to media directors from local advertising agencies, is “just not good […]

Jacquie Golding-Duffy After 17 years of broadcasting, Capital Radio will go off the air at exactly 6pm this Friday. Established in December 1979, Capital, based in Durban, has been an issue of debate between the telecommunications ministry and the Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA) for eight months. Fifty employees will lose their jobs after months of […]

hallucinatory drumming Jann Parry in London BODE LAWAL is a man possessed. In his solos for Sakoba Dance Theatre’s programme, New Moves in African Dance (at the Purcell Room), he seems in the grip of spirits, who speak to him and for him. Sometimes they are ancestral spirits, sometimes his own sense of curiosity and […]

Jacquie Golding-Duffy THE Press Council of South Africa, established in 1992 in response to pressure from former president PW Botha, will finally be dissolved next year following much debate on the future of this adjudicator. It will be replaced by an ombudsman and an appeal panel which should be up and running by March next […]

Kader Asmal is quietly performing the miracle of regaining control of the country’s water while keeping happy the farmers whom this will affect most, writes Eddie Koch BOET VAN RENSBURG, the owner of a vast Highveld mielie estate that is irrigated with some of the cheapest water in the world, is quite proud of the […]

Shaun de Waal FROM THE ASHES OF ANGELS by Andrew Collins (Michael Joseph, R149,95) MAGI: IN SEARCH OF A SECRET TRADITION by Adrian G Gilbert (Bloomsbury, R149,95) THE TOMB OF GOD by Richard Andrews and Paul Schellenberger (Little, Brown, R139,95) A TEST OF TIME by David Rohl (Arrow, R139,95) THE kind of books that used […]

Anthony Kunda in Lusaka AN alliance of seven opposition parties that boycotted the elections – led by former president Kenneth Kaunda – has vehemently vowed never to recognise or respect the new Zambian government because “it was elected fraudulently.” Dr Rodger Chongwe, chairman of the Liberal Progressive Front, said this week: “We will hold demonstrations, […]

Rehana Rossouw DEPUTY Environment Affairs and Tourism Minister Peter Mokaba’s bid for the leadership of the African National Congress in the Northern Province will be discussed by a high-level ANC National Executive Committee delegation (NEC) to the province this weekend. This week Mokaba confirmed that he was available for the position of ANC Northern Province […]

Ann Eveleth NORTHERN KwaZulu-Natal National Investigation Task Unit head Mandlenkosi Vilikazi won his third murder conviction last week. Induna Mandlengqondo Mathonsi and his uncle, Patrick Mathonsi, were sentenced last Friday to 16 years’ and 12 years’ imprisonment respectively by the Mtubatuba Supreme Court for the murder of two people in August 1995. They also received […]

Racism exists in Brazil as it does here, but it is not nearly as overt, argues Mungo Soggot IN a hall which could comfortably swallow three tennis courts dance hundreds of sensual Brazilians to an ear-splitting drum beat. The dazzling couples, some of whom include outrageously camp homosexuals, are products of what must be one […]

Lynda Loxton THE Western Cape is relying on several “mega-projects” to help it cope with the expected national economic downturn and still maintain its growth edge over other provinces. Minister of Economic Affairs Chris Nissen told a conference on regional economic prospects this week it was “rather pleasant” to be in a province with above-average […]

THEATRE: Andrew Wilson BEWARE – there’s a Nineties white male troopie on the loose: marginalised and misunderstood by a fickle, changing political landscape, and with no enemy left, he comes armed with insight, despair, and a kit-bag full of anecdotes. Currently on at the Civic, Greig Coetzee’s White Men With Weapons is less a play […]

Rehana Rossouw FAITHFUL members of People Against Gangsterism and Drugs (Pagad) continued to flock to the organisation’s activities this week, despite an initiative by religious leaders to caution against its militancy. On Wednesday night, more than 1 000 Pagad members marched to a house in Lansdowne, Cape Town, which they claimed was owned by an […]

CINEMA: Derek Malcolm `THE story that follows is about Minnesota. It evokes the abstract landscape of our childhood – a bleak, windswept tundra, resembling Siberia except for its Ford dealerships and Hardee’s restaurants. It aims to be both homey and exotic, and pretends to be true.” So says Ethan Coen, producer and co-writer of Fargo, […]

A short cut for the rough may have made the course easier, but this won’t detract from the victory of whoever ends up first in a quality-packed Million Dollar field GOLF: Jon Swift THERE has always been something very special about the Nedbank Million Dollar Challenge. There is the attraction of watching a select field […]