Staff Reporter

John Hooper in Rome ITALY’S most celebrated dramatist, Dario Fo, has been left partially blind by a stroke, he revealed in an interview published last week. For several months he had also had problems with his speech and memory. In July 1995, Fo called off a tour of Europe. At the time, he was reported […]

Mungo Soggot THE shortcomings of state-sponsored accident insurance were highlighted this week in a case in which a paraplegic told a tragic tale of her struggle against avaricious relatives while her lawyer slammed the state’s controversial pay-out practices. Judge Neil MacArthur implored Renia Motloung, 30, who was turned into a paraplegic in a collision in […]

CAPTAIN Winston Scott, pilot astronaut, epitomises the new breed of astronaut now working at Nasa. His resum lists a set of intimidating accomplishments, from a first degree in music to a masters in aeronautical engineering, a career as a navy pilot, and then a mission specialist aboard the Endeavour for a nine-day space flight. He […]

Suzy Bell IT’S based on the premise that the spirit of ubuntu meets advertising on a hot and heady Apple Macintosh keyboard with a manic mouse tripping on orange juice spiked with the wicked realism of raw design. Seldom before has there been such a brilliant collaboration of skilled and raw talent as seen in […]

Short of funds to fight his court battle, Bantu Holomisa has asked the president for his Transkei military pension, reports Stefaans Brmmer BANTU HOLOMISA, gearing up for a bruising and expensive court battle to be reinstated as an African National Congress member, this week asked President Nelson Mandela to give him his Transkei military pension. […]

Telford Vice IN SEARCH OF WILL CARLING: AN EPIC JOURNEY THROUGH AFRICA TO THE RUGBY WORLD CUP by Charles Jacoby (Simon & Schuster, R90) RUGGER-BUGGERS who buy this book before spotting the subtitle may believe they are getting 343 pages of Rugby World Cup 1995 as distilled through the pen of an erudite Englishman. The […]

The truth commission’s Alex Boraine said the confessions would start. Last week, the perpetrators began to tell their stories. In the latest in our guest writer series, poet Antjie Krog listens to the different voices FOR six months the Truth Commission has listened to the voices of victims. The first narrative, focused and clear, cut […]

The soldiers of Five Recce have never hesitated when it comes to charging into battle, but the regiment has been more tentative in adapting to change in South Africa, writes Stefaans Brmmer PHALABORWA is the type of mining town where streets are still named after the likes of presidents Steyn and Kruger. Its burghers give […]

Alex Bellos AFTER indie rock comes Hindi pop. Bally Sagoo, who made history last week with the first Hindi language single in the United Kingdom Top 40, has been invited to meet the Indian president to be blessed for his success. Sagoo, from Birmingham, but already a household name in the subcontinent, will meet Shankar […]

BOOKS: The latest from the literary world Courageous anti-apartheid publisher Ravan is no more. TONYMORPHET pays tribute to those who first published JM Coetzee and others RAVAN Press has finally closed its doors. Not even the name could be saved as it was swallowed by Hodder &Stoughton Educational. It’s no use mourning the loss – […]

The anti-abortion campaign will not die down after the passage of the Choice on Termination of Pregnancy Bill, pro-life groups vow. Rehana Rossouw reports AMERICAN-STYLE demonstrations outside hospitals and clinics where abortions are performed will be the norm in South Africa, the country’s biggest pro-life grouping warned this week. Glynnis Newbury, of Pro-Life, said the […]

Not Quite Friday Night is back on our TV screens with a change of name.ANDREW WORSDALE talks to the director ON entering the room I notice an ashtray crammed with stompies and half-sucked cough sweets; a soundtrack features some eccentric interviewee and I catch the end of a sentence, ” … the heat then starts […]

Marion Edmunds TWO former intelligence agents – a man and his wife – who were fired after refusing to take a prescribed oath of loyalty to the 1994 transitional authority, are suing the government for more than a million rands for unfair dismissal. Papers have been filed in the Pretoria Supreme Court by Susan and […]

No Bjork and a lacklustre foreign line-up drove DROR EYAL to the second stage at the year’s biggest concert I WAS converted. I went down to see this over-hyped monument to PC rock, the 5fm Birthday Concert at Kyalami last weekend, plunging myself into an audience of 40 000 odd people and their collective sweat […]

Glynis O’Hara WHILE prisons may no longer accuse people with artistic ideas of being “pansies”, and open their doors to a range of creativity projects, they most certainly do not want to pay for them. “We’ve been forced to shut down,” says Gary Friedman of Puppets In Prison. “We’ve worked for the past seven months […]

CAROLINE SULLIVAN thought live hip-hop was boring – until she saw the Fugees play in London HOW big is “big”? In the Fugees’s case, big enough that Sony had to stop making their number-one single, Killing Me Softly, because it wouldn’t get out of the charts over the summer to make way for the next […]

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 […]

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, […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

Hazel Friedman AFTER five years of negotiating and 11 months after a deal was struck, actors are still stranded by the South African Broadcasting Corporation’s (SABC) failure to sign a contract to protect their rights. And SABC officials don’t even know where the long-awaited Television Performers Contract is. Head of television Gill Chisholm told the […]