Ann Eveleth A strike by awaiting-trial prisoners in Durban’s Westville prison entered its second month this week. At least six prisoners have escaped and hundreds of others are refusing to attend court proceedings until their demands are met. Topping the prisoners’ list of grievances, presented to the ministries of justice, safety and security and correctional […]
CINEMA: Andrew Worsdale Patrice Leconte’s Yvonne’s Perfume arrives in this country over two years after its international release. But don’t miss it: in many ways it’s his most lyrical work to date. Leconte’s Monsieur Hire caused a ripple at the art house in 1989, with its subtle dissection of a murder tale and economical narrative. […]
Claims of fraud have surfaced to haunt truth commission official Hlengiwe Mkhize. Stefaans BrUmmer reports TRUTH commissioner Hlengiwe Mkhize, head of the truth body’s reparations committee, is at the centre of a storm over the “collapse” of a non-governmental organisation racked by allegations of maladministration. In February remaining staffers of the National Children and Violence […]
The District Six Museum is a memorial to the evils of the Group Areas Act, but its survival is threatened by the government’s lack of support, writes Rehana Rossouw ALTHOUGH memorials celebrating Afrikaner history receive millions of rands of support, the government has only been prepared to make a one-off payment of R200 000 for […]
The exclusion of wine products from the EU free trade agreement negotiations has had wine farmers calling for tariff protection. Lynda Loxton reports South African wines have taken the world by storm, but the wine industry is growing restive about the possible unfair competition it could face from imports. This week, KWV chairman Lourens Jonker […]
Two years of transition: A series by leading South African authors, celebrating the second birthday of our democracy Njabulo Ndebele AFTER some 20 years of absence, I returned home with a family in 1991. On the first Saturday of our return, I took them on a drive to see the house in which I was […]
peace A new optimism has arisen out of arrests in politically related crimes on the South Coast, reports Ann Eveleth The work of the police Special Investigation Team probing political violence on the KwaZulu-Natal South Coast has brought relative peace to a region once soaked by the blood of internecine strife. Hailed as a “breakthrough” […]
co-operate with truth body Mungo Soggot JOHN Lloyd, the former activist who gave evidence which led to the hanging of the 1964 station bomber John Harris and which prompted the British Labour Party to scupper his political career, has apologised “unreservedly” and agreed to co-operate with the truth commission. Fellow Armed Resistance Movement (ARM) member […]
THEATRE: David Le Page BESSIE HEAD’S novel Maru is a stark dissection of racial prejudice, all the more compelling for looking at the relationship of black Batswana and the Bushmen. It is not a perfect novel, but there is enough insight, and unexpected writing, to make it memorable. Walter Chakela’s adaptation for the stage, now […]
Simon Segal The government has finally moved to smooth the path of foreign aid, after years of difficulties and frustrations encountered by foreign donors. It has closed the interdepartmental International Development Co-operation Committee chaired by Elty Links, who has been appointed South Africa’s ambassador to the European Union. Instead, all official development assistance now falls […]
ANDREW WORSDALE spoke to the movie-mad director of the South African/Indian film, The Making of a Mahatma LAST weekend’s lush premiere of The Making of a Mahatma — the first feature film to be co-produced by South Africa and India — had a distinctly political feel to it. Newly appointed Minister of Trade and Industry […]
Eddie Koch KwaZulu-Natal Attorney General Tim McNally will subpoena the Department of Military Intelligence to supply a vital batch of military documents which have gone missing from the top-secret collection implicating General Magnus Malan and other officers in a conspiracy to murder African National Congress supporters. Last week the AG handed a set of documents […]
exploitation In advertising one ‘must use whatever one can to make whatever point one needs’. But are children abused by this system? A decision by the Olympic Bid to use the photograph of an impoverished child in its ad campaign has sparked a debate on the ethics of using children in marketing. Jacquie Golding- Duffy […]
THE cosy club that is the Johannesburg Bar is in danger of splitting into two camps over whether it should stay in town or head for the northern suburbs to cater for clients who are unwilling to brave the city centre. Last year the Bar Council asked its members to vote on whether they wanted […]
Business says South Africa can ill-afford a national strike while investor sentiment is still fragile. Madeleine Wackernagel and Jacquie Golding-Duffy report As Cosatu members prepare to picket today (Friday), in advance of the first 24-hour national strike called this year, new evidence shows a significant increase in labour unrest in the first quarter. And this […]
POP/ROCK: Chris Roper TINA TURNER presents an energetic and polished show, and, observing the enthusiastic and adulatory response of the audience, you can come to only one conclusion: if Nelson Mandela was a woman, he’d be Tina Turner. There is just no way to engage objectively with the music and performance of the supreme Granmeister […]
RUGBY: Jon Swift THE shambolic machinations of the disciplinary procedures evident throughout the Super 12 this past week have all the hallmarks of a South African Everest expedition. Queensland Reds winger Damian Smith is sent off against New South Wales for two dangerous head-high tackles, and less than a week later appears without sanction against […]
As the final constitutional deadline draws closer, some rights remain unresolved, write Gaye Davis and Justin Pearce Exhausted constitutional negotiators kept smiling — sometimes grimly – — this week, saying they were on track to meet the May 8 deadline for the adoption of the final Constitution. But the happy faces barely concealed the reality […]
TELEVISION: Hazel Friedman IT doesn’t require an analyst to read between the lines of the SABC’s first public forum for discussion of the weird and wanton ways of the print media. In fact, after three episodes of this long-overdue, well-intentioned but weakly conceived programme, the cracks in Between the Lines can be measured on the […]
An MD allegedly interfering with editorial content, reporters fearing for their jobs? What, or who, is going down at the Sowetan? Jacquie Golding-Duffy speaks to both sides While New Africa Investments Limited (Nail) is gearing up to bid for newspapers in the Times Media Limited stable, some of the consortium’s board members are facing accusations […]
The truth commission hearings in the Western Cape might have missed the full picture of human rights abuses committed there, Rehana Rossouw reports UNITED Democratic Front (UDF) activists, who bore the brunt of the state’s iron fist in the Western Cape, did not show up at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s hearings in Cape Town […]
South Africa continues to support the manufacture of ‘smart mines’ despite foreign opposition, writes Justin Pearce South Africa has again refused to support an outright ban on landmines, in defiance of the wishes of Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Foreign Affairs This week South Africa went to the Review Conference on the United Nations Convention on […]
Bronwen Jones PROTOTYPES of puncture-proof tyres just made at a factory in Carletonville mark the beginnings of what is expected to become a multi-million rand industry for South Africa. The main design project started in 1991, when military users asked the Defence Research and Development Council and Allthane Technologies International, to find a solution to […]
shafts The mining industry is about to introduce a state-of-the-art health and safety sytem, reports Eddie Koch A revolutionary health and safety Bill for the mining industry — along with last week’s dramatic findings of the inquiry into the Vaal Reefs disaster — will give thousands of workers who experience some of the worst safety […]
‘Advertisements’ like the one below are popping up in publications around the world. Now the M&G joins in The Fear Project Hazel Friedman ADAM BROOMBERG knows what it is like to be shit-scared. Literally. Or, rather, he has a mediated understanding of it from reading articles on experiments in which white mice were exposed to […]
to more violence’ Ann Eveleth KwaZulu-Natal human rights groups delivered a stiff blow this week to the African National Congress’s bid to stall local government elections in the province, warning a postponement would escalate tensions. In a submission tabled to the task group investigating the feasibility of the May 29 poll date, the Human Rights […]
Philippa Garson reports on mixed reactions to the proposed new higher education system MANY academics blanch at the discourse of today’s education policy-makers, who talk of multiple exit and entry points, ladders, frameworks and flexibility — descriptions of “pathways of learning” that seem to bear closer resemblance to complex obstacle courses than the hallowed process […]
To make some of this week’s main news stories come alive, visit the following dedicated sites on the World Wide Web. http://www.uoknor.edu/okdaily/bombing.html is the home of The Oklahoma Daily’s web news service on the April 19 1995 bombing of the Alfred Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City. http://www.envirolink.org/earthday/ is the official home page of […]
Rehana Rossouw PRESIDENT Nelson Mandela and Vodacom managing director Alan Knott-Craig are pictured shaking hands in the latest edition of the company’s magazine Vodaworld. This in-house magazine not only provides clients with information about how Madiba relaxes, but the latest information about its products. Airlines and most top hotels have published in-house magazines for decades […]
Consumer confidence may be buoyant, but manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers are concerned that the credit spending spree will be short-lived. Lynda Loxton reports While most economists are still bullish about the economy, the latest round of surveys by the University of Stellenbosch’s Bureau for Economic Research (BER) send out worrying signals about future growth. Consumer […]
Every point will be precious for Northern Transvaal and Natal in their scramble for a place in the Super 12 semi-finals RUGBY: Jon Swift TO SAY that the run-in to the semi-final stages of the Super 12 competition has reached the critical stage for both Northern Transvaal and Natal would be stating the obvious. And […]
A new Bill before the Namibian legislature proposes stiff penalties for journalists found in ‘contempt of Parliament’, reports Graham Hopwood JOURNALISTS are fearful that Namibia’s era of official goodwill towards the media is over after the tabling of a draft law which seeks to punish journalists for reporting leaks or “false information” on parliamentary affairs. […]