Staff Reporter

Last week’s story opened up a hornet’s nest. KAREN DAVIS reports THE story about Tebogo Lerole caused a row over composer’s recognition and royalties for a Fifties song called Tom Hark. The song was a hit in its time and was also re-arranged and recorded by British jazzman Ted Heath. “It was a standard tune […]

Lottery operators should not be allowed to cream off the profits, Richard Branson tells Madeleine Wackernagel Richard Branson is a firm believer in capitalism, but with one exception — a national lottery. The British entrepreneur, in Johannesburg last week to garner publicity for the inaugural flight of Virgin Airlines, was adamant that South Africa should […]

RUGBY: Jon Swift IT is perhaps something to be thankful for that the rugby season has swung back into the business of Currie Cup and the rude awakening of the test arena is, for a while at least, behind us. It will, until the tours of Argentina and France and the single international against Wales […]

Mail & Guardian Reporters PUBLIC Protector Selby Baqwa’s baptism of fire over the Sarafina II debacle has drawn a mixed reception from political parties and commentators. The Inkatha Freedom Party slammed his performance, saying Baqwa had been “unfair to the public which demands transparency”. The party’s health study group deputy chair, Jeanette Wilikazi, said he […]

Rehana Roussouw The public protector, Selby Baqwa, has been asked to investigate alleged corruption by senior government officials during a takeover of Paternoster Fisheries. Paternoster’s plight was highlighted at a parliamentary portfolio committee hearing in June which investigated complaints in the fishing industry. The committee decided Baqwa should investigate the downfall of the village. “The […]

Fay Davids Linda Adams of Corporate Childcare leads the pack in lobbying for the provision of childcare at work. She’s knocked at the doors of this country’s major corporations to get them to start creches. Her perseverance is paying off. “More companies are requesting feasibility studies.” The Liberty Life creche is one of three that […]

Max Gebhardt South Africa’s censors have banned public viewing of the movie Kids and are even considering prohibiting private ownership. Kids is by all accounts a disturbing movie. While HIV-positive Jennie lies half-comatose on ecstasy after visiting a night club, she is raped by a teenage boy — just one scene from the new movie […]

Shaun de Waal DURBANITE folkie and sometime leader of The Utenstils, Syd Kitchen, plays jazz-singer/guitarist on City Child. The opening song is a charming if ambivalent miniature of growing up “to city freedom” and “city hatred”, and from there on the songs flow easily one after the other. In terms of its sound, the album […]

The failure of inflation figures to reflect the rand’s plunge raises doubts about the data’s accuracy, report Madeleine Wackernagel and Mungo Soggot SCEPTICISM about the reliability of South Africa’s statistics is spreading to inflation figures in the wake of repeated complaints about the accuracy of the monthly trade numbers generated by Customs & Excise (C&E). […]

Angella Johnson Police say they are beginning to make significant inroads in the fight against organised crime, following the arrest of a seven-man gang in connection with the manufacture of mandrax tablets. The men, including a British chemist, were nabbed last Monday after a month-long police surveillance operation in Lichtenberg unearthed a major drug- making […]

Max Gebhardt Mega-university Unisa is sinking under the weight of deepening labour-related crises. Vice-chancellor Marinus Wiechers says he is considering using deadlock procedures and dispute resolutions allowed under labour law to resolve continuing troubles on campus. Staff and academics on the Pretoria campus have called for his resignation, saying Wiechers failed to provide effective leadership […]

The battle for District Six in the Land Claims Court promises to be as bitter as the fight against the forced removals from the area, writes Rehana Rossouw THEY’LL be on opposing sides in the Land Claims Court (LCC) in October, but Basil Davidson and Anwar Nagia agree on a fundamental issue: the Restitution of […]

Stuart Hess TWENTY members of the elite police reaction unit in KwaZulu-Natal stand accused by family members of murdering a 23-year-old Inanda man who was shot as he lay sleeping in bed with his girlfriend. The family of Thulani Nzuza say the group of uniformed officers burst into the house in the early hours of […]

Minister of Welfare and Population Development Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi responds to a recent M&G article AS in other parts of the world, the issue of whether to provide social assistance to permanent residents has come to the fore in South Africa. The article entitled “No pensions for permanent residents” by Marion Edmunds (August 16 to 22) […]

David Macgregor MORE than 28 000 cattle valued at about R75-million have been stolen in the Eastern Cape this year as organised syndicates increase their supply of cut- price meat to the townships. Several farmers have thrown in the towel as the cattle-rustling figures have already doubled what they were for the whole of last […]

FINE ART: Hazel Friedman – PHILIP BADENHORST’s exhibition would make interesting “reading” were it not for his desire to make his mark as a neo-expressionist high-tech symbolist. Ultimately that is what one retains of his work – the mark – violent slashes of reds, blues and black. And while vibrant, colourful and certainly evocative, it […]

Jane Badham THE travel brochures show you pictures of the big five, stretches of pristine beaches, luxury hotels and smiling faces. The picture of peace and harmony, but allow me to paint the real picture … We have long known that we are living in the most violent country (with the exception of Bosnia) in […]

Pressure to change the Usury Act is growing now that the government has called on the public to suggest improvements to the law, writes Tebello Radebe THE “David and Goliath” battle concerning overcharging by the banks, spearheaded by the Financial Research Foundation (FRF), rages on even though the principals do not seem to differ on […]

Gaye Davis ON November 17 the public will be able to scrutinise a special register concerning MPs’ financial interests. MPs, senators and President Nelson Mandela himself will have to detail earnings, gifts and other benefits on special forms. This follows the adoption earlier this month of the Code of Conduct in Regard to Financial Interests. […]

Marion Edmunds SOUTH AFRICAN BROADCASTING CORPORATION journalists, along with about 250 of their colleagues from around the world, were holed up in a compound in Libya this week, unsure when they would be allowed to leave the country to return to their homes. According to Current Affairs Executive Producer Freek Robinson, a producer, Kotie van […]

HAZEL FRIEDMAN reviews the extremely lovely exhibition Artists’ Books at the Johannesburg Art Gallery IN the beginning there was the word. Then the word became print, opening up a seemingly magical world in which information could be reproduced and circulated for mass consumption. Then came the book, containing the continuum of experience and the moving […]

The new head of the secret service, and his deputy, will be looking out for the dangers and opportunities facing the country, reports Gaye Davis THEY’VE been described as student radicals, and they’ve certainly got the T-shirts earned during careers which took them from student activism to jail, exile and working underground for the African […]

Jan Bergman believes he is the best boxer in South Africa. This weekend he has a chance to prove his boast correct BOXING: Gavin Evans THERE’S a kind of prickly arrogance about Jan Bergman which comes across as alternatively endearing or plain irritating, depending on your vantage point. He’s a man who “knows” he’s the […]

THEATRE: Alexander Sudheim reviews Durban Poison – WHEN, in the 1950s, Lenny Bruce walked up to the microphone in an LA club and asked, ever so innocently: “Are there any niggers here tonight?” the concept of stand-up comedy was revolutionised. At first there was a deafening silence from the audience. Then Sammy Davis Junior, sitting […]

Even the police in Mpumalanga are afraid to testify against local gangs, report Sharon Hammond and Justin Arenstein STATE-SPONSORED gangs, who used government patronage to build criminal business empires, featured prominently during Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) sittings in Mpumalanga this week. Although state support for the thugs officially ended with the dissolution of the […]

Yunus Momoniat CITIZEN AND SUBJECT: CONTEMPORARY AFRICA AND THE LEGACY OF LATE COLONIALISM by Mahmood Mamdani (James Currey/Fountain/David Philip, R79,95) – UGANDAN academic Mahmood Mamdani, who worked in South Africa for a time, has written a wide-ranging and highly theoretical book which attempts to discern a pattern in the process of colonialism in Africa. He […]

Marion Edmunds A NUMBER of African National Congress ministers are trying to breathe new life into the Masakhane Campaign by making Deputy President Thabo Mbeki its new figurehead. Mbeki will promote payment of rates and taxes, as part of the drive to create a “new patriotism”. A representative from the Constitutional Development Ministry, Mpho Msmane, […]

Gaye Davis AFRICAN NATIONAL CONGRESS chairman Jacob Zuma is emerging as a strong contender for the position of deputy president of the organisation. President Nelson Mandela’s announcement that he would step down as ANC president at the organisation’s conference in December 1997, and as the country’s president in 1999, has paved the way for Deputy […]

The widespread strike in Zimbabwe may be over, but the country’s troubles aren’t, reports Julius Zava ALTHOUGH Zimbabwe’s strike by civil servants has been suspended, the threat of renewed labour unrest continues. The strikers have given the government until September 27 to address problems Plain English which lead to their strike which lasted nearly four […]

Hazel Friedman A ROW has erupted in the Greater Johannesburg Transitional Metropolitan Council (TMC) following furious demands by the South African Municipal Workers’ Union (Samwu) that a moratorium be placed on all new appointments to local government. The TMC refuses to abide by the moratorium. This comes in the wake of the appointment of the […]

Andrew Worsdale THIS Friday sees the South African release of Crash, a movie so controversial it has not yet been News, features, released in the United States or the other services United Kingdom. Local distributors Nu-Metro are leading the international market with computing their bid to release the film completely uncut, but with a “no-under […]

Information is power and the Central Statistical Service is determined to put it to better use than the old government, reports Aspasia Karras IN a paper presented in August for the Institute for Advanced Social Research at the University of the Witwatersand, Deborah Possel focused on the relationship between counting and controlling. She argued that […]