Staff Reporter

Bart Barnes ALGER HISS (92), the former State Department official whose 1950 perjury conviction for lying to a grand jury about communist espionage activity became one of the most celebrated and dramatic spy cases of this century, died last week in New York. He had emphysema. Hiss, who served almost four years in prison after […]

A decision on the second phase of the Lesotho water project must include the issue of private-sector funding, writes Bronwen Jones A BATTLE royal is looming between the Zulus and the Basotho over who will supply water to South Africa in the next century. While it may not pitch kings Goodwill and Letsie III assegai […]

SAfm’s new station manager has caused ructions among staffers. She spoke to Jacquie Golding-Duffy CHARLENE SMITH has only been station manager of SAfm, South Africa’s oldest radio station, for six weeks. But she has already caused ructions and much dissent. A small group of freelance and full-time staff signed a petition two weeks after Smith […]

The M&G’s guest writer Hein Marais visited the SACP’s headquarters and found a party still spinning as it tries to recreate its role THERE’S not much here to bolster one’s preconceptions. The offices are not sandwiched into Shell House. They’re not festooned with posters of Karl and Vladimir or peppered with souvenirs from China and […]

IN the editorial “Paradox of Lekota & Zaire” (November 8 to 14), you inter alia commented that our government had “failed to send the president, his deputy, or even the foreign minister” to the recent summit convened by President Daniel arap Moi of Kenya in Nairobi. You went on to state that instead, the government […]

Confidential papers point to a top-level plot to oust Transnet executive Sipho Nyawo, reports Andy Duffy SACKED Transnet executive Sipho Nyawo was the victim of a “witch-hunt” by white management fearful of government plans to transform the parastatal, acting Portnet chief executive Ivor Funnell says. In his submission to an inquiry which ended this month […]

Stephen Buckley in Gisenyi, Rwanda AS they hustled to escape the world’s largest refugee camp last week, thousands of Rwandans left behind some of their most important possessions: their children. Some youngsters got separated from loved ones during the two weeks when as many as 500 000 Rwandan refugees were crushed into Mugunga camp in […]

>From secretive parastatal to private-sector partner, the metamorphosis of the CSIR has been significant. New challenges of funding and resources lie ahead, writes Madeleine Wackernagel CONSIDER that the world’s top 30 companies together spend more on research and development than South Africa as a whole and you get an idea of the challenges facing the […]

Glynis O’Hara QKUMBA ZOO’s song The Child Inside reached number one on America’s Billboard Club Charts this week. The chart reflects what is being played at most clubs throughout the United States. It looks like they could be South Africa’s most commercially successful musical export since Manfred Mann invaded the British charts in the Sixties. […]

Joshua Amupadhi South Africans may have stumbled across a treatment for the Ebola virus this week. American scientists may shortly begin new experiments after the Gabonese doctor who brought the virus to this country responded well to steroids given to him by doctors who did not know he had the virus. Johannesburg Hospital’s Professor Guy […]

Mungo Soggot COMPANIEA VALE DO RIO DOCE (CVRD), Brazil’s most prized state asset, went on sale this week, signalling the start of a major privatisation in which Anglo American has expressed interest. The sale of the CVRD mining group is seen by Brazilian businessmen and academics as a crucial signal that President Fernando Henrique Cardoso, […]

The latest hike in interest rates will put further pressure on already squeezed consumers, reports Max Gebhardt THE banks followed Reserve Bank Governor Chris Stals’s lead this week with a 1% rise in interest rates, hitting consumers exactly where it hurts most – in their pockets. The commercial banks’ decision to raise the prime overdraft […]

Duncan Mackay AT least four positive drug tests taken at the Olympic Games in Atlanta are yet to be made public, according to an expert on testing. Only two positive tests were reported from athletics events at this summer’s Games, which were hailed by the International Olympic Committee (IOC)president Juan Antonio Samaranch as among the […]

The French Barbarian team is packed with talent, but the Springbok `dirt-trackers’ team has been playing well enough to show that they can meet the challenge RUGBY:Andy Capostagno T HE trouble with touring is that just when you’ve gotten to like a place, you have to move on. Those of us lucky enough to spend […]

Angella Johnson POLICE dented the operation of a truck hijacking syndicate this week when they raided a warehouse in one of Johannesburg’s industrial sectors and confiscated R200 000 worth of goods which had been stolen from a lorry hijacked in Gauteng. In one of their quickest hits this year, officers from the anti-hijacking unit, acting […]

Lyndall Campher NIGEL BRUCE’S departure from Financial Mail for Finance Week has shaken up the financial newspaper industry and not a moment too soon. Businessmen are now confronted with an interesting and diverse array of choice, unlike the business environment when Financial Mail and Business Day were initially launched. This array of choice extends beyond […]

Andrew Worsdale The First International Southern African Film Market has drawn to a close in Cape Town. Our reporters were there THE scale and organisational success of last week’s Film and TV Market in Cape Town was amazing – especially considering the organisers didn’t know if all their finance was in place until four weeks […]

Marion Edmunds THE R18-million Presidential Review Commission (PRC) – tasked to investigate the public service – is heading for a crash, and may well be deproclaimed by Cabinet, a year before concluding its business. Sources say that Public Service Minister Zola Skweyiya has instructed his staff to prepare a Cabinet memorandum suggesting the PRC be […]

The Financial Mail editorship is up for grabs, but no formal offers have yet been made, reports Mungo Soggot BUSINESS REPORT editor Peter Bruce has emerged as a contender for the editorship of the Financial Mail (FM), which lost Nigel Bruce in the the dramatic takeover of Finance Week by former FM editor at large, […]

Aerial advertising has put a new thrill into the industry and is cost effective, reports Gillian Farquhar ALTERNATIVE advertising has been around in South Africa in varying states of ebb and flow since the Eighties; but this small and avant-garde form of marketing is slowly becoming more of an attraction, spawning spectacular vehicles to get […]

SOCCER:Andrew Muchineripi HAVING already won the African Champions Cup and Super Cup within a few months, defending African champions Orlando Pirates will now focus their sights on the African Cup Winners Cup, which is known as the Nelson Mandela Cup. But first, they will have to sweep aside the challenge of Jomo Cosmos when the […]

BAFANA KHUMALO talks to two young DJs who are making waves on community radio HIS name first cropped up at one of those PR junkets where rich companies spend an enormous amount of money to win over newspaper hacks with an appetite for expensive food. He is Zakile Dakile – shortened to Zak because, he […]

Glynis O’Hara `TOURISTS these days are less interested in theme parks and special events than in experiencing other ways of life.” So says Carol Steinberg, Director of Arts and Culture. Commenting on last week’s National Conference on Cultural Tourism in Cape Town, hosted by the Department of Arts and Culture, she says one of the […]

David Philip Publishers are celebrating their 25th anniversary, writes RACHELLE GREEFF IF Paarl Mountain has a Taal Monument, the Werdmuller Centre next to Claremont station should consider a monument to David Philip Publishers – it can only beautify the amazingly unsightly building. DPP survived the old South Africa with its draconian censorship laws, book raids […]

Andrew Worsdale in Amiens VETERAN South African cineaste Lionel Nqakane was awarded a Medal of Honour on Monday by the mayor of Amiens, France at the 16th International Film Festival. The award was also given to celebrated Japanese actor Ken Ogata (the star of the films of Shohei Imamura, who’s enjoying a retrospective at the […]

Palaeontologists have found an 18-million- year-old tooth in Namaqualand, writes Lesley Cowling. Is this proof that Eden extended as far as South Africa? FEW people taking a stroll along a beach would notice this small, white, pebble-like object. A dentist should recognise it as a tooth, says French palaeontologist Dr Brigitte Senut. “And if he […]

Newcomer Facts & Fiction is taking on the industry giant with a formal application to the Competition Board over claims of unfair practices, writes Max Gebhardt THE on-going row between book giant CNA Gallo and the newcomer to the industry, Facts & Fiction, is set to flare up again, with the news that Facts & […]

The Caprivi commander who exposed Inkatha hit squads is angry he wasn’t called as a witness in the trial of Magnus Malan, report Mehlo Mvelase and Ann Eveleth THE man who lifted the veil of secrecy once shrouding Inkatha Freedom Party-aligned hit- squads in KwaZulu-Natal launched a scathing attack this week on the prosecuting team […]

M&G Reporter A fuss this week over a personal secretary to Nelson Mandela who posed for Hustler magazine offers an alternative explanation for the decline of South Africa’s porn industry: that the smut merchants don’t recognise a golden opportunity. Lilian Arrison, a secretary at the president’s official Cape Town residence, submitted her portrait to the […]

THEATRE: Andrew Wilson NEED relief from mind-dulling television? Take a dose of Death-Defying Acts on at Johannesburg’s Civic Theatre until December 21 – three brilliant, hilarious and incisive one-act playlets by David Mamet, Woody Allen and Elaine May. They are thematically interwoven glimpses of urban America, all employing sparkling dialogue to parody and penetrate the […]

Joshua Amupadhi SECONDARY schools in KwaThema, east of Johannesburg, came to a standstill this week when a small group of pupils stopped 10 000 others from writing exams. Pupils were later bused to secret venues to complete their examinations. The police and army presence at schools, there since August, has also been beefed up. The […]

FINE ART: Suzy Bell HER painting is untitled, unsigned and undated. Her subject matter: social realism. Her colours: depressingly dark and dull. So what if Monet said “Colour is my day-long obsession, joy and torment.” Because masters student of Fine Art at the University of Durban-Westville, Patience Ngcobo (22), is quite honestly sick of bright […]