A year and R100-million later, plans to sell Mossgas are back to square one, writes Mungo Soggot THE government’s failure to sell Mossgas — and the bungled announcement of the fiasco — has highlighted the political power struggle over the fate of the synthetic fuel producer. The struggle may have cost the taxpayer over R100-million […]
I WISH to bring to your attention certain inaccuracies in two articles in the M&G of June 28 to July 4 1996. In the first article on the sale of six SABC regional radio stations, it was stated that the Cabinet had approved the amendment of the Independent Broadcasting Authority Act to expedite the sale […]
Lynda Loxton The grand-scale fudging of issues to protect sacred cows in the oil industry continued apace this week with the release of the long-awaited Lambrechts report on deregulation. The report advises the government to retain the status quo for at least three to five years, while the already over-researched industry is again studied and […]
Johnnic’s stake in Toyota SA may go to a multinational, not the National Empowerment Consortium, if ongoing negotiations succeed, writes Tebello Radebe A major multinational company has been urged to buy Johnnic’s stake in Toyota South Africa, worth more than R230-million, for fear that a successful bid by the National Empowerment Consortium (NEC) could jeopardise […]
Philippa Garson THE sudden death of professor Etienne Mureinik was a tragic loss to the countr y, friends and colleagues said this week. Mureinik, dean of the law faculty at Wits University, took his life by jumping from the 23rd floor of a hotel in Braamfontein on Wednesday morning, accordin g to police, after a […]
Experts believe 11 lions found in a forgotten Ethiopian zoo may be related to two African subspecies wiped out by colonists. Eddie Koch reports Ever wondered why the beast roaring out of the screen at the start of every MG M movie doesn’t really look like the cats you see in the Kruger National Park? […]
THERE’S a lot to be said for slouching over a barstool, alcohol seeping through every crack and recording otherwise unrepeatable gems of wit and wisdom (yours and anyone else’s within slurring distance). That’s how Chris McEvoy has put together his material for Hollow, a searingly funny stand-up comic routine on the relationship between life and […]
A barrister berates Shell in front of village elders. It’s music to the ears o f the military, writes Patrick Donovan GIVE him a wig and black silk gown, and Napolean Agbedetse could have walked b ack into the south London courtrooms where he used to practise as a barrister. He is on the bank […]
ANDREW WORSDALE searches for an interesting plot among the holiday glut of children’s movies. Films about growing up don’t have to be stupid or simplistic — one only has to think of The Wizard of Oz, The Railway Children, My Life as a Dog or Toto the Hero. But with the school holidays upon us, […]
The excitement this week over the release of Greg Blank seems to have less to do with the merits, or otherwise, of the parole system than the general sense of frustration in the country over crime and punishment. As Blank himself has complained, he is “white and rich” and as such a ripe target for […]
Angella Johnson The young tracker was apologetic. “You wouldn’t believe it. Last Friday we recovered seven stolen cars, today not one live one.” Cruising at a cool 200km/h about 2 000m above some of Johannesburg’s crime spots, we were on the lookout for two vehicles stolen in the Johannesburg area over the weekend. I had […]
Tebello Radebe Mpho Mokwana, equal opportunities director at the Ministry of Labour, has strongly defended the right of the government to propose strict penalties and fines against companies that will not comply with affirmative action laws, despite recommendations by the recent Labour Market Commission report. “We cannot have laws for the sake of having them, […]
Bronwyn Jones EVERY year the Sahara Desert expands its arid boundaries and the population of Africa grows. And while big plans are afoot to tap the waters of Zambia and Lesotho to quench South Africa’s industrial thirst, none of it will prove enough unless tied with long-term protection of water sources and a sharp curb […]
Jacquie Golding-Duffy A Cape Town-based Muslim community radio station is being hauled before the Independent Broadcasting Authority following an alleged contravention of its licence conditions. Voice of the Cape, which shares air-time with Radio 786, is to appear before the IBA’s Broadcasting Monitoring and Complaints Committee (BMCC) on July 9 for allegedly failing to inform […]
BORIS YELTSIN urged Russian voters not to allow their “grievances and tiredness” to sway the vote. But what if Boris himself is too tired? It may only be a sore throat, but Yeltsin’s backers must be on their knees and praying hard. They are faced with an unpalatable scenario. What happens if Yeltsin’s sore throat […]
Last week, Swaziland’s acting Prime Minister Dr Sishayi Nxumalo and Minister of Information Prince Khuzulwandle, accompanied by heavily armed police, went into state-run radio and television newsrooms and withdrew items about a clash between police and striking teachers. Swaziland has since early this year been going through a spate of strikes by private and public […]
The Inkatha Freedom Party is planning to oust some of its top political representatives following its election defeat in KwaZulu-Natal’s main cities, the province’s economic heartland. Party members will also debate whether to form an alliance with either the National Party or the African National Congress. IFP leaders said the party was expected to do […]
Prospects of a large church congress in Zimbabwe has given impetus to the gay rights movement, writes Iden Wetherell in Harare ZIMBABWE’s embattled gay community, the target of an abusive campaign last year by President Robert Mugabe and Zimbabwean church leaders, is bracing for another confrontation with the same opponents. A proposal by international Protestant […]
TENNIS: Mick Cleary and Jon Henderson in London THERE is scarcely an inch of the vast Wimbledon complex which is not landscaped with signposts, manned by livery-clad information guides carrying sandwich-boards or outlined in the bulging information brochures. The only thing the authorities forgot to include for the thronging crowd was an explanation of just […]
The SABC’s expansion into rural bureaux has provoked a mixed response from radio stations, writes Jacquie Golding-Duffy SABC radio news is planning to expand its operation by establishing eight rural bureaux at an initial start-up cost of about R3,2-million. SABC radio news managing editor Alwyn Kloppers says increasing the number of newsrooms in rural areas […]
RUGBY: Jon Swift Boy Louw said it best. “Looks for the scoreboards” was his superbly unique and ungrammatical reply to criticism of how the Spingboks played. So it should be with the 43-18 scoreline from this week’s test against Fiji at Loftus Versfeld. This was not an inspired perfomance. But it was a winning one, […]
A seasoned politician remarked this week that “there is no message like the one delivered by the electorate”. For some of the thousands of candidates who contested last week’s local government polls in the Durban Metro, that message must be a bitter pill to swallow. Poor Kathuravaloo Vallaraman, who contested the sparsely-populated Hawaan Nature Reserve […]
The Mark Gevisser Profile Since the Market Theatre opened in 1976, Janet Suzman has come home to do a play three times — almost exactly once a decade. And that, says theatre boss John Kani, is just about as much of her as they can take: “She’s a monster! An absolute monster! She presents a […]
Muslim members of Mozambique’s Parliament are trying to pass a law recognising the days of Eid as public holidays. Andrew Meldrum reports from Boane Sabati Omar breaks from his work building a mosque to explain how Islam is growing in Boane, a rural area in southern Mozambique. “Every month we see somebody convert,” says Omar, […]
Despite top-level intervention, Amplats sees little hope of an end to the illegal strike, report adeleine Wackernagel and Jacquie Golding-Duffy Production at Rustenburg Platinum Mines has ground to a halt as the last shift of 7 000 workers went on strike this week. With 21 000 workers already dismissed, the mass sacking sets a record […]
Lynda Loxton Boland Bank, based in Paarl, has been transformed over the last year from a relatively small, mostly Western Cape bank into a more sophisticated market player serving the country as a whole. Not surprisingly, the process has placed some strain on management and revealed weaknesses in bad-debt control, which it is working hard […]
Philippa Garson OVERSEAS donors are still investing in higher education, despite fears that the escalation of violent protest and crime on campuses would scare them off. The executive director of the Tertiary Education Fund of South Africa, Roy Jackson, said he would be “very surprised” if the campus turmoil “didn’t cause a great deal of […]
A $4,5-billion poker game between diamond trader De Beers and the world’s biggest diamond mine, Argyle, will come to a head during the next seven months. Argyle of Australia — part-owned by Britain’s RTZ mining conglomerate — walked out of De Beers’ marketing cartel this month, a move some saw as the beginning of the […]
A huge explosion which injured 70 people in July 1987 and was blamed on `ANC terrorists’ was almost certainly the work of the police. Rehana Rossouw reports A bomb which former state president PW Botha described in July 1987 as a “callous act committed by terrorists under the godless control of criminals” was almost certainly […]
M&G Crime Correspondent Angella Johnson, who spent 10 years working on papers like The Guardian, London Times and Los Angeles Times, finds herself at loggerheads with the SAPS `Precision of communication is important, more important than ever, in our era of hair-trigger balances, when a false, or misunderstood word may create as much disaster as […]
The West Coast diamond group is following De Beers’ lead in targeting higher-priced stones, writes Lynda Loxton West Coast diamond companies have had mixed fortunes in recent years, not least because of the dumping of low-quality diamonds on the world market by Russia. The agreement reached by De Beers’ Central Selling Organisation (CSO) and Russia […]
Julian Drew At the colourful and emotional send-off for the South African Olympic team last Sunday, the Olympic oath was read on behalf of the team by modern pentathlete Claud Cloete. While it is true that Cloete is only in the team courtesy of a wild card granted to athletes from developing countries to ensure […]