Questions are being raised about why Alfred Nzo’s Chinese visit included ANC MPs, writes Gaye Davis A POLITICAL row is brewing over Minister of Foreign Affairs Alfred Nzo’s visit to China, with questions to be asked in Parliament as to why his delegation included four African National Congress MPs. Questions have also been raised over […]
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 […]
lively in Rome TENNIS: Jon Swift THERE is, provided you are not a tennis player, something remarkably special about Rome. The city lives. This vibrancy in the very air you breathe in the Italian capital is in sharp contrast to the stadium where the nation plays its tennis. The Foro Italico is as dead as […]
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 […]
plans to sue Gauteng Philippa Garson THE Gauteng Education Department is facing legal action for closing down a private school without giving reasons. When George Zachos opened a private high school next to his marketing college in Johannesburg, he didn’t bargain for the “nightmare” he claims he suffered, a nightmare he has “no words to […]
Sydney Mufamadi has an acute dilemma. There is no question that the minister of safety and security needs to act against those who brazenly carry dangerous weaponry in situations of tension and conflict. Outside of the militants of the Inkatha Freedom Party, there was universal praise when President Nelson Mandela announced at the opening of […]
The Kenyans dominated the world cross country championships once again, but the organisers were the real winners ATHLETICS: Julian Drew SOUTH AFRICA’S aspirations to host the world’s top sporting events received a significant boost after last Saturday’s world cross country championships in Stellenbosch which many experienced observers considered the best they had ever attended. The […]
Barney Pityana, chairman of the Human Rights Commission, in The Mark Gevisser Profile WHEN Geoff Budlender visited one of the many trials of Barney Pityana in the early 1970s, he ran into his fellow student-leader’s mother, whom he did not recognise but who clearly seemed to know him. She revealed herself as Budlender’s aunt’s domestic […]
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 TWO of the Cameron Commission’s key recommendations to lift the veil of secrecy on South Africa’ s arms export industry failed to find support in Cabinet. Water Affairs Minister Kader Asmal — who heads the Cabinet committee scrutinising arms trade policy and arms export applications — had already rejected elements of the the […]
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 […]
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 — […]
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 […]
AS the parties move into intense negotiations about “provincial powers” at an Arniston bosberaad, the African National Congress is trying to dismiss the suspicion that its latest drafts on provincial competencies do not comply with the constitutional principles, inherited from the multi-party negotiations at Kempton Park. The constitutional principle in question states that provincial powers […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Playing Francois Pienaar out of position was the wrong move, but Chris Rossouw moving from hooker to eighthman was a success for Transvaal RUGBY: Jon Swift THERE are those who still believe fervently in the school of thought so successfully propagated by the late Danie Craven that if a man is what the Doc called […]
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 […]
Doc Martens will have been kitting out grannies and models for 36 years this week. Here are some vital statistics Age: 36 on April 1. Appearance: In your face. Meaning? As the footwear of preference for Britain’s skinhead community, a good kicking as likely as not involved a pair of Doc Martens. But surely that […]
JAZZ: Gwen Ansell TRUMPETING, roaring and pawing the ground, the trombone is the elephant of the jazz band. In the right hands — and Jonas Gwangwa’s, at the Johannesburg Civic Theatre, are certainly those — it’s also capable of breathtaking delicacy and precision. Instrumental virtuosity is one of the main delights of Gwangwa’s show, which […]
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 […]
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 […]
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.” […]
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, […]
Rehana Rossouw MARTIN WELZ, editor of noseWEEK, is one of a kind. His one-man-band magazine is the only investigative journal in the country, despite the fact that it is run from his home. This is the first time noseWEEK has been taken to court, despite the publication’s record of exposing information many would prefer remained […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
give-and-take The Constitution: The Constitutional Assembly has produced its last working draft of the final Constitution before the May 8 deadline. It will be finalised at a bosberaad this weekend, reports Marion Edmunds AFRICAN National Congress MP Willie Hofmeyr’s eyes are large pools of limpid exhaustion as he gazes onto the first page of the […]