Attorneys general in two provinces are on the verge of pressing charges in two celebrated cases of murder of anti-apartheid activists, writes Eddie Koch Suspects in two of South Africa’s most publicised murder mysteries — the slaying of the Pebco Three and the gruesome assassination of Pretoria doctors Fabian Ribeiro and his wife Florence — […]
Holes are appearing in the story of the ‘professional climber’ chosen to lead a South African Everest expedition, write Mike Loewe and Mungo Soggot A curious picture began to emerge this week of Ian Woodall, the mountaineer who was to have led a South African expedition to glory on the summit of Mount Everest. The […]
night Bafana Khumalo ‘Now what is wrong with this guy? Where did he get his licence? Pep Stores?!!” It’s another adventure starring yours truly, children. This time I am sitting in a taxi and the driver is not a happy man at all. His unhappiness stems not from the fact that he has to spend […]
Mungo Soggot MINERAL and Energy Affairs Minister Pik Botha wants a South African oil field deep in the heart of the old Soviet Union. He told the Mail & Guardian this week he is trying to perusade local oil companies to form a consortium to buy an oil field in Kazakhstan, one of several politically […]
A strange case has been under way this week in the Kempton Park magistrate’s court — an application for the extradition of a British spy, Paul Grecian, to the United States. Grecian, the man credited with blowing the cover on Saddam Hussein’s project to build a “super-gun”, was arrested on December 15 while on a […]
The Constitutional Assembly has spent millions of rands encouraging people to involve themselves in the writing of a new fundamental law for our country. Often this campaign has looked like no more than an advertising agency empowerment exercise, and there is little evidence that anyone in the CA gave more than a cursory glance to […]
seeming fair Clients often complain that they lost their court case because the judge was biased. When are they to be taken seriously? MOST lawyers have heard their unsuccessful clients complain, after their case was lost, about the judge who decided against them. If the complaint is merely that the judge was an idiot, then […]
Mungo Soggot JUSTICE Minister Dullah Omar said this week he was awaiting “certain information” about the controversial retirement of former Witwatersrand attorney general Klaus von Lieres und Wilkau, but had yet to launch an official investigation. After resigning and receiving a R12 000-a-month ill-health pension courtesy of the taxpayer, Von Lieres took on the defence […]
Gaye Davis THE Human Rights Committee has asked the Constitutional Court to allow members of the public to appear before it to give their views on the final Constitution, on grounds that much of what has emerged has come out of closed political party negotiations. The Constitutional Court has set aside the month of June […]
CINEMA: Andrew Worsdale POSSIBLY the greatest action director in the world, John Woo is relatively unknown in South Africa. The only one of his films to have played on the main circuit is Hard Target, his first US feature, with local boy Arnold Vosloo as a dinkum Afrikaans mercenary, and Jean-Claude Van Damme intent on […]
Arthur Goldstuck Give it to me straight: how many people really are on the Internet? How many people will get my marketing message and buy my product? That remains the single most vexing question about the potential of the Internet, at least when you get past the hype about pornography and security. If you still […]
The private and the public sector have joined hands to develop one of the first rural housing developments. Madeleine Wackernagel reports on the project The Housing Ministry — specifically its failure to deliver — has come in for substantial criticism in the past year. So it was with obvious delight that Minister of Housing Sankie […]
Ann Eveleth probes the ANC’s threats to boycott the KwaZulu-Natal elections on May 29 Poor leadership, organisational chaos and overstretched party machinery are the real reasons behind the African National Congress’s election panic in KwaZulu-Natal. ANC sources argue that the party leadership failed to grasp the significance of conceding victory to the Inkatha Freedom Party […]
With the launch of the Sci-Fi Channel, JOHN O’REILLY ponders the irony of a station devoted to a genre that warns us so graphically of the evils of TV YOU arrive home after a hard day at the office. You flop into the sofa, press a button. Suddenly you are transformed into either a vicious […]
Simon Segal THE great seven-year haggling game between divergent interest groups around the establishment of a regulated bond market appears at last to be moving towards a resolution. Last week the Bond Market Association (BMA) submitted its application to the Financial Services Board (FSB) to be licensed as South Africa’s bond market exchange. The FSB […]
Marion Edmunds It is likely that the tradition of the makhulu-baas will continue in South African party politics. This week the African National Congress and the National Party shelved constituency-based politics once and for all, settling for a system of proportional representation. This system makes the personality and charisma of the leader of a political […]
The events of a single day may make all the difference to Lawrie Fraser’s battle for his adopted child, reports Justin Pearce The adoptive parents of the infant son of Lawrie Fraser and Adriana Naude took the child out of South Africa only a day after the adoption was secured, according to a letter submitted […]
Shadley Nash A national strike is looming in the chemical industry, should demands by workers for a centralised bargaining council not be met. This warning was issued on Wednesday by Welile Nolingo, vice-president of the Chemical Workers and Industrial Union (CWIU), at a mass protest march in Port Elizabeth. The union also used the opportunity […]
The SABC is keeping its involvement in a R20- million locally made production under wraps, reports Jacquie Golding-Duffy BRITAIN’S Channel 5, which will begin transmission in the UK next year, is planning to buy one of South Africa’s biggest ever locally made television co-productions. The R20-million family action adventure series called Legend of the Hidden […]
Cyril Ramaphosa’s move into the business sector is a serious blow to South Africa. His absence from the post-election Cabinet was regrettable and the failure to draft him on the occasion of the recent re-shuffle was equally lamentable. The ANC’s explanation for his move — that it is part of a brilliant strategy to broaden […]
Soon you will be able to study to be a Nat politician, reports Marion Edmunds The National Party is setting up a political academy and its first group of 50 students begin training on August 1. While the detail of this academy is still under discussion, the shape and concept has been accepted. An NP […]
Family planners who still believe in the slogan ‘development is the best contraceptive’ are nuts, argues Ann Cluver Weinberg ‘BECAUSE it feels right” is no way to run a country. In the United States presidential campaign of Senator Barry Goldwater in the early 1960s, the slogan was coined: “In your heart you know he’s right.” […]
With youthful rebels on a cannibal rampage, Westerners are fleeing the anarchy in Liberia, a country abandoned by the West, writes Phillip van Niekerk TWO-and-a-half weeks ago, soldiers overran the village north-west of Monrovia where Sensi Momoh lived. They were young, some no more than teenagers, and heavily armed. They fired at random and ransacked […]
Bafana Khumalo ‘Ahm tellin’ ya, that’s one fahn hoe!” Fahn Hoe!? No children, I have not decided to make my column more relevant. Nor am I trying to write about the plight of white farmers and the scarcity of hoes. In fact, I am sitting in a downtown bus eavesdropping on a conversation between two […]
Serjeant AT THE BAR The Truth and Reconciliation Commission should not be treated like a court of law THE Truth and Reconciliation Commission kicked off, this week, in an appropriately dramatic and South African fashion — with threats of litigation and bombs at the first hearing. There will probably be plenty of both over the […]
A firm proposal on the Johnnic deal is yet to be made, despite a deal between Nail and the NEC. Madeleine Wackernagel and Jacquie Golding-Duffy report on the progress so far To judge by the media frenzy sparked by Cyril Ramaphosa’s entry into business, the deal between Anglo-American and the National Empowerment Consortium (NEC) — […]
TELEVISION: Andrew Worsdale THE state of Britain’s independent TV drama took a nosedive in 1992, when Carlton Television won the franchise for the greater London area and started playing to the lowest common denominator. Class Act — SABC 3’s new Saturday night sitcom — financed by Carlton in 1994, is no exception. This 14-part series […]
Mike Loewe The most ambitious public relations stunt by a South African newspaper is degenerating into farce as two ill-prepared women climbers scramble for the top of Mount Everest. South African mountaineer Cathy O’Dowd, a Rhodes University photojournalism masters student and daughter of Anglo-American director Michael O’Dowd, will carry with her the hopes of her […]
attitude Madeleine Wackernagel The rand retreated from its record lows this week, no thanks to Trevor Manuel’s insistence that the government’s position on exchange controls remains firm. The finance minister is labouring the point, said one economist. He should have made suitably reassuring noises at the onset of the crisis, and then let the markets […]
ATHLETICS: Julian Drew FEW of the 1 500 or so crowd who actually showed up for last Sunday’s Pepsi All Africa International Athletics Meeting were still in the stadium when the highlight of the afternoon’s proceedings took place. The 800m, which was the last track event of the meeting, had just finished and the spectators […]
Baby Jake growing bigger Baby Jake Matlala will be stepping into the big time when he steps into the ring for his next bout against a meanie from Mexico BOXING: Gavin Evans THE magnificent renaissance of lovely little old Baby Jake Matlala is about to be taken into a higher realm. He is set to […]
Mail & Guardian Reporters PRETORIA Attorney General Jan D’Oliveira, whose office this week wound up its marathon prosecution of Eugene de Kock, plans to charge more security force members in high-profile “political” murder trials over the next “month or two”. These prosecutions may pre-empt applications by perpetrators of apartheid crimes to the Truth and Reconciliation […]