Staff Reporter

OPERA: Coenraad Visser PACT OPERA first staged this astounding production of Wagner’s Der Fliegende Hollander in 1991. The Teatro Colon team, Roberto Oswald and Anibal Lapiz, created a visual spectacle the envy of any major opera house. The cast too, led by South Africans Wicus Slabbert and Marieta Napier, would have done any major artistic […]

Cheating scientists in many countries have national committees to answer to, write Peter Lennon and Lesley Cowling, but not in South Africa or Britain THERE was a time when we stood to attention at the mention of “scientific” research. But the discovery last week of fraud by a researcher at the United States National Institutes […]

Transnet has fired a key executive just four months after he was appointed. Are the surviving executives up to the job of managing one of the country’s biggest businesses? Stuart Hess reports TRANSNET has fired executive director Sipho Nyawo following an independent investigation into credit card abuse. The parastatal briefed Minister of Public Enterprises Stella […]

voters’ cards Anthony Kunda in Lusaka THE Zambian government has sworn it will prosecute former president Kenneth Kaunda in the face of upcoming presidential and parliamentary elections on November 18. Kaunda has been holding rallies around the country in the last week, asking people to turn their voters’ registration cards over to his party, so […]

ANC members who were part of township self- defence units have joined the call for an extension of the cut-off date for amnesty, writes Eddie Koch HUNDREDS of former militiamen – members of ANC-aligned self-defence units (SDUs) as well as Inkatha’s self-protection units (SPUs) who once fought each other in pitched battles on the East […]

HAZEL FRIEDMAN previews Johnny Golightly’s latest collection called Love: A Retrospective WHAT do you do when the romance goes out of your relationship? “You put on your clothes and go home.” Those words are familiar to all of us who’ve gone looking for love in all the wrong beds. But to artist John Anthony Boerma, […]

Andy Duffy FIRST NATIONAL BANK (FNB) has given ousted managing director Barry Swart a pay-off barely different to the salary he would have earned had he not been fired. The bank, which released its year-end results this week, is refusing to disclose terms of the settlement which were agreed to in September when Swart left […]

Corruption and incompetence at Eskom’s Soweto division have led to a management shake-up, reports Andy Duffy ESKOM is quietly replacing top staff at one of its largest divisions after an independent investigation uncovered rampant corruption and incompetence among senior management. The parastatal declines to detail the shake- up at the Soweto division, saying its plans […]

ONE of the curious aspects of the African National Congress in government is its paradoxical insistence on exercising its authority when it is not needed and failure to do so when it is. The paradox was on display again this week, with regard to Zaire and the leadership struggle in the Free State. When Nelson […]

SA The North-West government is bracing itself for an outcry over a massive influx of Chinese immigrants, reports Marion Edmunds AN immigration consultancy is making preparations to bring 55 000 Chinese families into South Africa next year from Hong Kong, Taiwan and mainland China. The Gauteng-based company, Exec-Immigration, confirmed this week that they had landed […]

Eddie Koch SAKKIE VAN NIEKERK had just spotted Willie, who had caused a bit of bother by hiding in a thick copse of trees on the farm near Pretoria, and was getting ready to fire a dart packed with powerful sedatives into his backside. “Well, wouldn’t you also hide away if you were going to […]

Prison warders gave prior warning of an escape in which some of their colleagues were involved, writes Ann Eveleth T HREE prisoners awaiting trial for taxi violence escaped from prison near Durban on Sunday with inside help.nnThe warders who allegedly helped the men get out of Westville Prison were also linked to the taxi industry, […]

An article published by Rapport has sparked a fierce row between two leading Afrikaners, writes Rehana Rossouw MOST readers who take umbrage against an article which appears in a newspaper will write one letter to the editor and leave it at that. But an unusual row has developed at Rapport between its editor, Izak de […]

GROUP 1 NIGERIA Previous appearances: 1962, 1970, 1974, 1978, 1982, 1986, 1990, 1994 Record: Played 50, won 23, drawn 15, lost 12, goals for 82, against 52 Best result: Sierra Leone 6-2 Worst result: Ghana 1-4 Key player: Midfielder Augustine Okocha Coach: Amodu Shaibu Rankings: 13 Africa, 63 world Nickname: Super Eagles GUINEA Appearances: 1974, […]

Matric exam leaks have resulted in large- scale reshuffling within the Gauteng Department of Education, report Joshua Amupadhi, Stuart Hess and David Shapshak SECURITY for the matric exams was so lax and the loopholes so many that the Gauteng Department of Education this week replaced many of the 700 officials of its examinations unit. This, […]

Institute of Race Relations president says apartheid was not a crime against humanity, reports Mungo Soggot IN a furious debate over apartheid’s status as a crime against humanity, Mpumalanga Premier Mathews Phosa this week lashed out at Cape Town academic Professor Hermann Giliomee as “standing in the trenches of apartheid”. At the eye of the […]

Aspasia Karras A REPRESENTATIVE piece at the current Hong Kong Biennale art show is a small pile of Chairman Mao Zedong’s little red book. In the context of threats and statements from Beijing to prevent future marches in Hong Kong, it presents a critical counterpoint to the generally upbeat approach most Hong Kong citizens appear […]

SOCCER:Andrew Muchineripi `I’M a Pirate, I was born a Pirate and I will die a Pirate.” Those were the words of an ardent soccer fan when I enquired about the outcome of Saturday’s Bob Save Superbowl semifinal clash between Orlando Pirates and Kaizer Chief at the FNB Stadium in Johannesburg. And most certainly, the way […]

They came as robbers to a house in Lenasia but they left as murderers of a young boy. Angella Johnson reports on the killing that shocked a community HE was only five years old. A boy delighted with himself after finding his lost piggy bank. But when Yaaseen Ebrahim rushed out of his room rattling […]

The parastatal and its main union have clashed over rights to a major stake in Johnnic, write Andy Duffy and Max Gebhardt TRANSNET’S pension fund has emerged as a major player in the Johnnic empowerment deal, fighting with the South African Railway and Harbour Workers’ Union (Sarhwu) for control over a large stake in the […]

THERE is Hebron, and there is beyond Hebron. At the moment the Israeli-Palestinian talks are bogged down on the first item dividing them, let alone the other issues still ahead. Israel claims that it is not seeking to alter the agreement already reached (but not implemented) on withdrawal from the last of the seven West […]

Mail & Guardian Reporters DEPUTY President Thabo Mbeki comes in for a scathing attack in Bantu Holomisa’s court challenge against his expulsion from the African National Congress. Holomisa says in his affidavit served on the African National Congress this week that he had cleared his Truth and Reconciliation Commission submission with President Nelson Mandela, who […]

Just a couple of months after the last competitors’ bus got lost in Atlanta, cities have begun the race to host the 2004 Games. John Duncan reports THEY are not at all what you would expect. There are 15 of them, slightly stern-looking, definitely bleary-eyed, weighed down by details of infrastructure and facilities and statistics, […]

FILM: Derek Malcolm IT IS difficult to imagine a sillier film than From Dusk Till Dawn, but the fact that it was written by Quentin Tarantino and directed by Robert Rodriguez, supposedly two of the most talented tyros Hollywood wants so badly to make its own, renders the enterprise the more absurd. Is this schizophrenic […]

IAN SANSOM takes a look at the Christmas blockbuster crop, and finds Frederick Forsyth the best of a bad lot HAVING thoroughly pursued my researches, I can report that the hyped-up, hard-sell hardback tends to have a funny smell. It’s not the smell of the boards and glue, it’s the smell of mediocrity. This despite […]

Andrew Muchineripi sets the scene for the qualifying competition that will determine which five nations represent Africa at the 1998 World Cup finals in France THERE are five places available to Africa at the World Cup finals for the first time and competition for tickets to France is likely to be as fierce as the […]

Marion Edmunds THE Minister of Public Service, Zola Skweyiya, acknowledged this week he was in trouble. At a meeting held behind closed doors in Parliament, he bluntly sketched the serious problems undermining transformation in the public service and appealed to parliamentarians, officials and international development experts for help. It is expected that the Parliamentary Portfolio […]

Marion Edmunds THE Home Affairs Department has quietly dropped the fee charged to foreigners to marry South African citizens. In July this year, Home Affairs introduced regulations which made it obligatory for foreigners to pay a set charge of almost R7 000 should they wish to marry South African citizens. At the time, the department […]

Angella Johnson IT was certainly three times lucky for “Lucky” Malaza. The convicted bank robber, mistakenly released from jail four years ago as a political prisoner, was recently arrested by the police for kidnapping, but released within an hour. Charges were dropped against him when the victim refused to give evidence and the man with […]

A new Johannesburg studio is moving body- piercing and fetishism into the mainstream. DROR EYAL pops by for a prick EVERYWHERE you go nowadays there are little techno babes in uncomfortable shoes, trying to score E, flashes of bare midriffs revealing discreet little navel rings. The happy shiny kids of tomorrow. Faceless techno music blasting […]

The process of electing a new vice-chancellor has been steeped in irony, but finally students and staff have a spring in their step, writes Philippa Garson IN the space of a few months the University of the Witwatersrand has, against all expectation, picked up its scattered pieces and moulded a fragile new unity for itself. […]

HUBBLE’S Universe: ANew Picture of Space (published by Constable), at first sight, looks like a coffee-table book on space, with bright dramatic pictures that suggest sci-fi book jackets or New Age tie-dyed shirts. But the pictures, taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, are not simply beautiful – they are a way of understanding how the […]