Stefaans Brummer THE arrest of Dr Omar Sabadia on an allegation of complicity in the murder of his wife, Zahida, has highlighted the relationship between the Brixton Murder and Robbery Squad and two private investigators, former hitsquad member “Slang” van Zyl and convicted double- murderer Jack la Grange. Some police and judicial eyebrows lifted this […]
SWIMMING: Julian Drew JUST after 10 o’clock on Wednesday morning in Durban the rain was sheeting down outside the King’s Park swimming pool. It had been raining hard all morning and the start of the day’s proceedings at the South African national aquatics championships was delayed by half an hour to allow competitors and officials […]
The trial of General Magnus Malan and the 19 other accused has has exposed the methods of the previous government’s State Security Council during the turbulent 1980s. Mangosuthu Buthelezi was seen as a puppet by the State Security Council in its covert battle against the ANC. Eddie Koch and Ann Eveleth report TOP-SECRET government documents […]
Stefaans Brummer SOUTH AFRICAN arms dealer Ters Ehlers — ex- President PW Botha’s last private secretary — has been implicated in “unauthorised” flights of a Russian cargo aircraft between South Africa, Namibia and Angola. Namibian Deputy Minister of Transport Klaus Dierks last Friday said his department had grounded the Russian- registered Antonov-12 in Grootfontein pending […]
Gaye Davis A HUGE computer database, capable of cross-checking names, dates and incidents, will be the truth commission’s most powerful tool. It will allow for fast checks on the truth of victims’ claims. It will also ratchet up the pressure on perpetrators to come forward — and come clean. Building the database is central to […]
One committed to emulating Europe; the other finding talent at home. COENRAAD VISSER reports on two opera companies fighting to survive TWO professional opera companies are playing in Gauteng — only one likely to survive in the long term, according to current thinking in the Ministry of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology. The teasing question […]
Jacquie Golding-Duffy The Parliamentary Select Committee on Communications has submitted the names of four nominees for the IBA councillors’ posts to President Nelson Mandela for approval. Mandela has to rubber stamp the nominations which are: Lyndall Shope- Mafole, currently an IBA councillor; Pietie Lotriet, former head of SABC commercial radio; Raymond Louw, a media task […]
Ricardo Dunn Accusations of abuse and intimidation of labourers on smallholdings in the Vanderbijlpark area are not uncommon. The local district surgeon says he treats up to 40 cases of abuse every month. Cheryl Felix, Vaal River chair of local government, says she has worked with numerous cases of physical and sexual abuse in the […]
Politics: Senators and MPs opt for the private sector Marion Edmunds Many members of Parliament and senators have decided to give up politics after 1999. For some, politics is a life- long calling — for others, it is a stepping stone to greater things. The ANC’s chief whip in Parliament, the Rev Arnold Stofile, is […]
THE most important documents in the collection, presented to back the allegation that the accused were involved in a conspiracy to commit murder, are: Minutes of a meeting on November 25 1985 between Buthelezi and General Tienie Groenewald, then Chief of Military Intelligence. Buthelezi is recorded as saying he needs a paramilitary force to protect […]
A 61-year-old white farmer stands accused of sexually abusing nine schoolgirls. Strangely, none of his neighbours seem surprised. Ricardo Dunn reports Ockie Olivier’s smallholding in Louisrus is typical of this depressed area south of Johannesburg: a creaking windmill, wild flowers and stray dogs set against the backdrop of steelworks, industry and pollution billowing into the […]
David Le Page THIS year’s Grahamstown Festival once again looks likely to have the town bursting at the seams with debuts, premieres, installations, exhibitions and screenings. Details of the line-up released this week reveal a myriad attractive theatrical possibilities. South Africa provides the context for an adaptation of a Brechtian classic — The Good Person […]
Agricultural output could account for a quarter of this year’s economic growth, reports Simon Segal THE most recent estimates from South African Agriculture Union economist Koos du Toit are that the good rains should see a 20% rise in the gross value of farm output this year to R35- billion (R28,9-billion was realised in 1995). […]
effect’ Madeleine Wackernagel reports on an unusual proposal to kick-start the RDP Two years after South Africa’s first democratic elections there is a sense of economic inertia. Part of the transition problem has been building a new government on old structures; conservatism is deeply entrenched, in business as well as government. Policy-makers are loath to […]
Justin Pearce The Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) has not requested a meeting with President Nelson Mandela, and the organisation’s Palestinian chapter has no plans to send a delegation to South Africa. Although Mandela has said he would be willing to meet Hamas representatives if they were to visit South Africa, his representative Parks Mankahlana said […]
IT is with great relief that the country learns of the clean bill of health given to President Nelson Mandela by Johannesburg’s Park Lane clinic. Rarely can a people — indeed the world — have wished for the good health and long life of an individual with as much fervour as in the case of […]
One of South African students’ oldest traditions, Rag, is starting to change its whites-only image, reports Philippa Garson IT’S Rag time again. Time for students to take to the streets in the age-old tradition of “Remember and Give”. Or is it “Retch and Gag”, given the beer swilling, rugger bugger image of Ragites of yore, […]
Beers’ hands Karen Harverson An upbeat De Beers — which this week announced a 14% increase in its attributable earnings to R2,25-billion for 1995 — is confident that 1996 will see its control of the rough diamond market strengthen. That control was threatened when Russia began leaking stones into the market in 1993, in violation […]
Politics The ANC’s united front over Sarafina II begins to crack Jacquie Golding-Duffy and Justin Pearce The scandal over the Sarafina II Aids play is threatening to escalate yet further with indications that the production may not have been financed by the European Union, but by the Ministry of Health. The development comes amid signs […]
Journalists rally in support of Fred M’membe and Bright Mwape, jailed for criticising the Zambian government. Justin Pearce reports Newspaper editors from South Africa and Namibia are to visit Zambian president Frederick Chiluba to demand the release of the two Zambian journalists who were arrested this week. The journalists face an indefinite prison term if […]
Up for investigation is M-Net’s legal right to two channels, writes Jacquie Golding-Duffy The Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA) will conduct an investigation into M-Net’s possession of two channels later this year. Together with SABC’s three channels, M-Net channels have limited the ability of the IBA to open up the airwaves. The pay channel’s open time […]
With Dance Umbrella under way, HAZEL FRIEDMAN speaks to the grande dame of choreography, Sylvia Glasser CHOREOGRAPHERS, dancers and audiences at this year’s FNB Vita Dance Umbrella have all been asking: where is Sylvia Glasser? Though the veteran choreographer has not presented an individual performance under her Moving into Dance rubric, she has been visible […]
TELVISION: Hazel Friedman IF the SABC archives contained a special section filed under MO for Missed Opportunities, Rhythms and Rights would probably occupy pride of place. Commissioned by the SABC as part of its local-content drive, this made-for-the-RDP dramatised documentary series is brimming with potential. Yet less than five weeks into this 13-part television series, […]
world The construction industry is positive about a better year ahead, locally and internationally, reports Karen Harverson Despite a slowdown in the building and construction industry towards the end of last year, the industry is optimistic that activity will pick up significantly by mid-1996. “The situation is a lot better now than two years ago,” […]
better Phillipa Garson ‘We are going to start with writing now; ons sal met potlode skryf” instructs teacher Diane Matthews to her “dual-medium” standard one class of about 50 pupils, two-thirds of whom are black. At Laerskool Venterspos, where Matthews has been teaching for 13 years, an unobtrusive revolution has taken place in the depressed […]
CINEMA: Digby Ricci ALTHOUGH, like her most captivating heroine Elizabeth Bennet, Jane Austen never ridicules “what is wise or good”, there is nothing cosily consoling about this most clear- sighted of satirists. With a moral aversion rendered all the more devastating by what Rebecca West called “the lattice-work of her neat sentences”, Austen excoriates a […]
Tough bouts in Tunisia are the last chance for South African boxers to book their places to the Atlanta Olympics BOXING: Julian Drew A rhythmic whirling sound intensifies the hypnotic concentration etched on the faces of the national boxing squad at a small hall in Maraisburg. They have just completed a warm-up run and are […]
Ann Eveleth AS proceedings got underway in the Malan trial Judge Jan Hugo’s eyes crinkled and his grey bearded face lit up with a jovial smile as he broke the ice to share a joke with Attorney General Tim McNally. Agreeing to postpone the trial to give the seven defence teams more time to consult […]
Gaye Davis AS medical investigations wound their way this week to the predictable conclusion that President Nelson Mandela was fitter than most men of his age, a sense of crisis infused the presidency as the realisation dawned that the question of who will succeed him would have to be dealt with. “There have been informal […]
Unmarried fathers who want to raise their illegitimate children could have the right to do so, if draft legislation before the Cabinet is approved, reports Rehana Rossouw JOHN WILLIAMS (25), a printer from Mitchells Plain, is forced to sneak visits with his six-year-old daughter at her Sunday school class. The child’s mother cut off Williams’s […]
Zimbabwe’s last ‘independent’ newspaper has bowed to pressure to tone down its critical stance. Former Financial Gazette assistant editor and columnist. Iden Wetherell mourns the demise of his country’s free press. DID you jump or were you pushed? The question from colleagues was understandable, given the mounting list of casualties in the Modus House massacre […]
As the ASA is stripped of yet another duty, rows among ad agencies continue, reports Jacquie Golding-Duffy Conflict concerning comparative advertising continues to brew in the ad industry. This follows the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) demand for the withdrawal of a recent BMW advertisement. The advertisement, a product of the agency Hunt Lascaris TBWA, was […]