Millions of rands of taxpayers money is being used to defend apartheid’s generals. Anne Eveleth has been counting those costs and identifying the legal teams in the dramatic ‘Malan’ trial. OPENING the Durban Supreme Court trial of former defence minister Magnus Malan and 19 others earlier this month, KwaZulu-Natal Attorney General Tim McNally declared that […]
Revelations about his alleged tax evasion have led to a dentist bringing a multi-million rand defamation case against two publications, writes Rehana Rossouw AN American-born dentist given South African citizenship in 1981, Dr Robert Milton Hall, “knew how never to pay tax and how to make a living out of fiddling the Finrand”. This is […]
Sevens South Africa’s team for the Hong Kong Sevens tournament is largely unknown and they’ll be coming up against some big names RUGBY: Adrian Oosthuizen SOUTH AFRICAN rugby fans will be hoping that some of the sparkle which saw the country emerge as world champions in 1995 will rub off on the team of exciting […]
The Safety and Security Ministry’s gamble in banning traditional weapons paid off this week when IFP marchers left their pangas and spears at home, writes Eddie Koch A COMBINATION of firm policing and delicate negotiations with moderate groups in the Inkatha Freedom Party defied fire-and- brimstone predictions that the ban on traditional weapons would cause […]
Bronwen Jones The old academic slanging match between excellence and relevance took on a new form this week when a South African scientist condemned the new Academy of Science of South Africa (Assa) as “elitist and unrepresentative”. Assa, launched this week as an initiative to unite South African scientists across ethnic lines, was lauded by […]
council’ KILLING two birds with one stone, the African National Congress is hoping to satisfy both the volkstaters’ and the National Party’s demands for constitutional protection for Afrikaners by creating cultural councils, and writing them into the final Constitution. Negotiations between the ANC and the Freedom Front (FF) on the one hand, and the ANC […]
JAMES SEY explores the enduring appeal of Fifties B-grade science-fiction movies THOSE wonderful and genuinely strange people at Norwood’s Seven Arts cinema have done it again. Following hard on the heels of their Friday night lesbian-vampire-grunge-horror movie slots (what do you mean, you missed them? You fool!) comes a festival of “space- fiction” movies, running […]
An apartheid-era weapons smuggler could be extradited back home to Demark, report Stefaans Brummer and Rehana Rossouw DENMARK may ask South Africa to extradite a Dane who shipped East-bloc weapons worth millions of rand to apartheid South Africa, against the United Nations arms embargo and Danish law. Danish shipper Anders Jensen left Denmark for South […]
Ad agencies disagree over the best means of advertising on the Internet, Jacquie Golding- Duffy reports on the possibilities Advertising agencies are being swept up by the “fourth media” — the Internet — but they disagree on whether it is more viable to handle it in-house or commission work to an outside agency. While VWV […]
Justin Pearce Stellenbosch University vice-rector Christo Viljoen leaves the Independent Broadcasting Authority this week, amid rumblings from within the IBA that he rarely turned up for duty in Johannesburg although he received a full-time salary for seven months. Viljoen, a former chairman of the South African Broadcasting Corporation —he also did that job part-time — […]
Since the first working draft of the Constitution was distributed in November last year, submissions have been pouring in to the Constitutional Assembly offering more proposals for the negotiators to work with, some of which have been ignored. These are the suggestions that have not made it into the Bill of Rights: 1) Freedom of […]
There is much to commend the idea of a monument which celebrates the triumph of freedom in South Africa and remembers those who sacrified and suffered to achieve it. Think of Auschwitz standing for all to visit and be reminded of the pledge of survivors, repeated by Mandela in his inauguration address: “Never, never again.” […]
As the Nigerian crisis increases and more students face the wrath of the regime, little help from Africa or the West appears forthcoming. Gaye Davis reports WHEN the telephone rang in Austin Abada’s sparsely furnished Cape Town flat this week, it heralded news as familiar as it was terrible. Abada, a Nigerian student leader seeking […]
The launch of the National Housing Finance Corporation will open new avenues for finance, reports Karen Harverson At present, South Africa’s traditional financial institutions provide housing finance to just 30% of the total population (mainly middle and upper income earners) and non- traditional lending institutions are mushrooming to fill the gap. These institutions are targeting […]
DNA testing may be the only solution to the furore surrounding the ‘skull’ of Chief Hintsa, recently discovered in Scotland. Eddie Koch reports The controversial “head” of Chief Hintsa, which has been brought back to South Africa, will become the subject of an intriguing scientific study mixing high-tech genetic analysis with Xhosa oral history. Hintsa […]
South Africa must be treated as a developing country by the EU if the free trade agreement is to succeed, says ANC MP Rob Davies. Lynda Loxton reports The European Union was sharply criticised this week for trying to treat South Africa as a developed nation rather than one with special development needs. African National […]
David Beresford The government appears to be hastily back- pedalling on an extraordinary plan to build a gigantic monument — at a cost of some R50- million — modelled on President Nelson Mandela’s hand as a “beacon of freedom” for South Africa. The disembodied hand, standing 23 metres in height and “breaking out of jail […]
Bafana Khumalo Black, White, Coloured, Indian … these categories don’t exist. There are only two races of people in this country: reasonably normally dysfunctional people like you and me and a sector who should not be out on the streets. I had the pleasure of meeting a member of this race last week when I […]
Julian Drew JUST over a year ago Colleen de Reuck gave birth to her first child, and ever since the soon-to-be-32 year-old Durbanite’s running form has been on an upward spiral. Last Saturday she registered possibly the greatest achievement of her career when she placed fifth in the world cross country championships in Stellenbosch, missing […]
CRICKET: Jon Swift IN SOME ways, the B&H final at Wanderers on Friday evening is cause for celebration of the cricketing rather than liquid variety which so marred some matches in the day-night series this summer. In other ways it is cause for regret. The enduring sponsor bows out of the game in this finale, […]
Pieter-Dirk Uys, South Africa’s most playful political commentator, digs into the truth commission in an effort to define what is true and what is just another aspect of reality THROUGHOUT our lives, I bet you, we’ve all at one time or another sweated before a truth commission. As small children, in front of the giggling […]
Ricardo Dunn The Bloemfontein man who was convicted last month of killing a dog by inserting a firecraker into its rectum has been relieved from his community service sentence at the SPCA. The Bloemfontein SPCA applied to the magistrate’s court to revoke its decision after it received hundreds of letters from the public and potential […]
funds? Hazel Friedman Pact employees are adamant that Arts and Culture Minister Dr Ben Ngubane was fully aware that staff members who had received generous “severance pay packages” were still employed by Pact. But the minister denies it. The Mail & Guardian revealed the “slush fund” scandal on March 1. Ngubane responded by saying he […]
Justin Pearce Zambian journalists Fred M’membe and Bright Mwape have been released from prison, but M’membe still faces charges of contempt of Parliament. M’membe and Mwape, respectively the managing editor and editor-in-chief of the independent daily The Post, have spent 24 days in maximum security jails, after the speaker of Parliament ordered their arrest in […]
Ed O’Loughlin IT may be only 10 days since his painful divorce from Winnie, but President Mandela has already given plenty of indication that he intends to make up for lost time. On Wednesday the Irish President’s state visit to South Africa was overshadowed in the popular press back home by news that Mandela, footloose […]
A new draft Bill will reopen the abortion debate, reports Gaye Davis DRAFT legislation giving women the right to have their pregnancies terminated on request is expected to go before Cabinet in April. Minister of Health Dr Nkosazana Zuma this week confirmed a draft Bill was being finalised by her department but said she could […]
With a code of conduct coming into existence, MPs will be compelled to disclose their financial interests. Philippa Garson reports WINNIE Madikizela-Mandela’s mysterious financial circumstances will come under the spotlight when the code of conduct for parliamentarians comes into effect. Her financial position has been the subject of intense speculation following disclosures in court records […]
Without financial back-up and in defiance of Parliament and the IBA, BopBC is going it alone, reports Jacquie Golding-Duffy With only days to go before the Bophuthatswana Broadcasting Corporation (BopBC) is obliged to integrate with the SABC, the broadcaster, once the mouthpiece of Lucas Mangope, is defiantly going it alone, outside of the Independent Broadcasting […]
The Davis/Pityana debate: The M&G has received a flood of letters on the issue, some of which appear below Peter du Preez, UCT Psychology Department YES, there are whacky liberals who believe they are without prejudice and prove it by condescending to those they are definitely not prejudiced against. There are also people who call […]
Gaye Davis, Rehana Roussouw and Madeleine Wackernagel SOUTH Africa got its first black finance minister late on Thursday — in the person of Trade and Industry Minister Trevor Manuel. In a Cabinet reshuffle sparked by the resignation of Chris Liebenberg, Deputy Minister of Finance Alec Erwin will now take over Manuel’s portfolio, while ANC MP […]
Marion Edmunds FEAR of the arbitrary powers of the secretive Immigration Board is preventing a public outcry about the way Home Affairs officials process applications by foreigners for work, study or residence permits in South Africa. And for the first time the Transvaal Law Society convened a “desperation” meeting with officials this week to tackle […]
Rehana Rossouw ALLEGATIONS of corruption and nepotism in the allocation of fishing quotas will be investigated by the Public Protector, Advocate Selby Baqwa, following a request from the Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism, Dawie de Villiers. The investigation follows mounting protests from fishing communities unhappy with the way quotas are allocated. Last month, fishermen […]