Staff Reporter

Africa Investments Ltd, in THE MARK GEVISSER PROFILE Rhodes, Rupert, Ramaphosa WHEN Nthatho Motlana ann-ounced that Cyril Ramaphosa was to join his New Africa Investments Ltd (Nail) and lead the bid to acquire Johnnic from Anglo American, the Sowetan – wholly owned by Nail – put out a 40-page souvenir edition to commemorate the fact. […]

Medicine Prize TWO scientists were awarded the Nobel Medicine Prize this week for a discovery 23 years ago in Australia. Australian Peter Doherty (55) and Swiss Rolf Zinkernagel (52) received the award for joint work at the John Curtin School of Medical Research in Canberra, between 1973 and 1975. The pair discovered how the immune […]

The author of bestseller Waiting to Exhale recently visited South Africa to promote her new novel. Terry McMillan spoke to MARIANNE BRACE AIR JAMAICA ought to be paying Terry McMillan commission. The heroine of her new novel, How Stella Got Her Groove Back (Viking), goes to the West Indies for a little rest and relaxation, […]

FORMER prime minister PW Botha “went through the roof” when he heard the radical proposals of a hand-picked team of senior civil servants whom he had mandated to find solutions to break the deadlock with the ANC in 1987. In their final proposal, the civil servants who participated in Operation Skrik Vir Niks criticised the […]

Connie Masilo-Matsunyane is one of South Africa’s hottest soap opera stars. BAFANA KHUMALO followed her trail and uncovered the real Connie SHE seems thrown by a voice on the other side of the cellular phone requesting, nay demanding with desperation, an interview the following day. But she recovers quite quickly, explaining that she can only […]

Joshua Amupadhi SOUTH AFRICANS seeking fortunes in Angola’s fabled diamond fields have fallen foul of the government’s crackdown on illegal immigrants as the ruling party, the MPLA, tries to prove it has stopped using South African mercenaries in ongoing skirmishes against the opposition, Unita. This is one reason given by the Angolan government for what […]

There are ominious warnings in KwaZulu-Natal that a major massacre could lie ahead if action is not taken, writes Ann Eveleth FOUR months since KwaZulu-Natal’s political leaders declared their 14-year civil war “over”, people continue to die all over the province for their political allegiances. And there are ominous signs that peaceful areas are beginning […]

Roger Cowe SAINSBURY and the Co-op signalled the start of a new era in British high-street retailing last week when they launched a project to transform their trading relationships with Third World producers. The two grocery groups have teamed up with the Fairtrade Foundation to develop codes of conduct that should result in improved conditions […]

FILM: Hazel Friedman THE ground-breaking local television series, Ghetto Diaries, won the award for best documentary at the 1996 Southern Africa Film Festival, held recently in Harare. The brainchild of filmmaker Teboho Mahlatsi and M&G Television Productions, the series provided a refreshingly gritty visual diary of township life and the aspirations of its residents. What […]

Ancient lore, modern art ONCE upon a time, Qauqaua, a beautiful San woman, murdered her husband in revenge for his murder of her mother. Clytemnestra, who in Greek legend killed her husband Agamemnon in revenge for his killing of their daughter, would have identified with Qauqaua. The two women are probably in some sort of […]

Ann Eveleth WARM sun chased the shadows from the hills around Mandini on the KwaZulu-Natal north coast last Sunday, but all that lit the main rondawel of the Shandu kraal was the glimmer of a single white candle burned in memory of the two young men gunned down there last week. Women mourning on straw […]

Angella Johnson THE government is to lift its two-year ban on recruiting new police officers following a public outcry over escalating violent crime and the continued haemorrhaging of manpower from the South African Police Service (SAPS). The first batch of candidates is expected to start training early next year, ending a moratorium police claim has […]

Not only did Shahid Afridi break the world record by scoring 100 from 37 balls, but he was also the oldest 16-year-old ever to play international cricket CRICKET:Neil Manthorp INTERNATIONAL one-day cricket has to produce something unbelievable these days to excite the pressbox. Generally, it’s all been seen before. And I mean genuinely unbelievable, not […]

Everything from gospel to kwaito features on Sipho Hotstix Mabuse’s first new album in five years. GLYNIS O’HARA talks to him YOU hear the name Hotstix and you think Burnout and Jive Soweto even though the songs are 12 years old. Then you say that it’s a pity, but Hotstix really hasn’t done anything to […]

LAST week the Mail & Guardian published details of a contract which Athletics South Africa (ASA) attempted to persuade the Olympic 800m silver medallist, Hezekiel Sepeng, to sign. It would perhaps have been naive to expect heads to roll as a result of the disclosures we made. The government’s handling of Sarafina II has not […]

waste Eddie Koch AN African National Congress senator acting as an official observer in the European Parliament (EP) last week persuaded African and Caribbean countries not to support a resolution from the Green Party demanding that large amounts of toxic mercury waste dumped in KwaZulu-Natal be returned to Europe for disposal there. The Green Party […]

ART: Hazel Friedman ASK artist John Meyer what his ultimate artistic ambition is and he will answer, unequivocally, “to paint like Velasquez”. As far as this painter of realist landscapes and portraits is concerned, in 300 years nobody has come closer to exuding true power through paint than the Spanish master, painter of the Rokeby […]

Marion Edmunds AFRICAN NATIONAL CONGRESS members of Parliament have threatened a parliamentary inquiry into the party’s appointment of consultants if Deloittes and Touche win a R1-million contract for the transformation of the Correctional Services Department. This contract, should it go to Deloittes and Touche, may be the last straw on the camel’s back for many […]

The IBA favoured new players against the print media giants, writes Jacquie Golding- Duffy THE media industry has taken giant steps to greater diversity with the sale of the South African Broadcasting Corporation’s (SABC) six regional radio stations. The Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA) illustrated its commitment to a varied industry when it denied the two […]

The Internet is changing the world’s economy, but does not always benefit those who need it most, writes Victor Keegan in London WE are constantly told how globalisation has shifted the balance of economic power towards multinational corporations at the expense of practically everyone else. Yet in the most exciting area of the world economy […]

IT is late evening, and Johannesburg is a city under siege. Forty-four Main Street, headquarters of the Oppenheimer mining and industrial empire – on some measures the greatest commercial concern on earth – was once the juiciest target on the nationalisation hit-list of Nelson Mandela’s liberationists. Now its top brass have the uncomfortable feeling that […]

Gaye Davis BANTU Holomisa, while preparing to launch a court action against the African National Congress to overturn his expulsion from the organisation, will be addressing rallies around the country in coming weeks. Holomisa was locked in consultations with his lawyers this week after instructing them to seek a legal review of expulsion from the […]

MUSIC: Glynis O’Hara SATURDAY morning it was a case of: Don’t call me, I’m recovering from Senegal’s Baaba Maal. Everyone who attended his show at Mega Music last Friday night deserves a little medal with the citation: “I endured heat, sweat, crushed toes, squashed ribs and conquered claustrophobia – all for my little Baaba.” The […]

Joshua Amupadhi SEVERAL high schools near Johannesburg are under police guard after 14 pupils died recently in mysterious circumstances. In one incident a week ago, four men allegedly abducted two high school pupils attending funerals at KwaThema graveyard, 50km east of Johannesburg, shot one dead and wounded the other in the chest. But now pupils […]

Anton Katz IN March 1976, Joelito Filartiga was tortured to death by Pena-Irala, the inspector general of police in Asuncion, Paraguay. Filartiga and his family were opposed to the government of Paraguay. His father, Joel, and sister, Dolly, went to the United States and applied for political asylum. Dolly later discovered that Pena- Irala was […]

Chris McGreal in Arusha, Tanzania LUC DE TEMMERMAN’S defence strategy is as brazen as the crime itself. Standing before the first genocide trial since Nuremburg, the Belgian lawyer denied there ever was any slaughter of Rwanda’s Tutsis. And if there was a genocide, then the world has got it all wrong. The real victims were […]

deal Stefaans Br?mmer CAMERON commissioner Laurie Nathan this week joined the chorus of concern over South Africa’s decision to sell arms to Rwanda, saying the government had not complied with its own criteria on exports to sensitive areas. Water Affairs and Forestry Minister Kader Asmal, who heads the Cabinet committee responsible for arms control, countered […]

While the makers of Nissan are laying off workers, they have bought two luxury retreats for executives and clients. Mungo Soggot reports IN the week that the company which builds Nissans kicked off a major retrenchment programme by sacking 200 workers, it has emerged that the car manufacturer has acquired two luxury retreats in the […]

Much delayed, the new Labour Relations Act could fall flat if a key element, the CCMA, fails to fulfill its brief, reports Max Gebhardt BUSINESS and labour are worried that the new Labour Relations Act (LRA) could trip up before it even gets off the starting blocks on November 11. Its success hinges on whether […]

Shaun de Waal HAVING frequently been the butt of criticism – especially in these pages – due to the organisation of its categories, the CNALiterary Award has been reorganised. South Africa’s longest-running national literary prize used to have only two categories: English and Afrikaans. Within them, highbrow fiction sometimes fought it out with yachting manuals […]

SAILING: Jonathan Spencer Jones THE BY Global Challenge – billed as the world’s toughest yacht race – got off to a fast and furious start in driving rain and high winds in Southampton on Saturday, after some four years of preparation and training. The 30 000-mile race, which will last about 10 months, involves 14 […]

SPEAKING of marriage, South African religious leaders say they would fully support President Nelson Mandela if he chose to make Graca Machel the next first lady of South Africa. While most religious leaders who spoke to the Mail & Guardian this week said they didn’t want to interfere with Mandela’s “democratic rights”, the general consensus […]