Staff Reporter

The latest person tipped as editor of the Sunday Independent is the Star’s political editor Kaizer Nyatsumba. Nyatsumba is one of many names being bandied about to fill the shoes of Shaun Johnson, who has been appointed editor of the Argus in Cape Town. Johnson replaces the Argus’s longtime editor, Andrew Drysdale, in a couple […]

The deadlock is broken: workers and employers will have equal representation on the pension fund board, reports Lynda Loxton The parliamentary joint standing committee on finance broke the deadlock on the question of worker representation on pension fund boards on Tuesday. It was finalising the Pension Funds Amendment Bill aimed at, among other things, implementing […]

The row over money spent on an Aids play has brought the relationship between the executive and legislature under the spotlight, writes Gaye Davis THE balance of power between the executive and legislature is becoming a central and highly contentious issue in what some politicians see as improper interference in the parliamentary process by the […]

Justin Pearce ANYONE who had lost hope for international socialist solidarity in the 1990s would have been heartwarmed by the scenes at Johannesburg International Airport on Tuesday, when the first 96 Cuban doctors arrived in South Africa. The placards held by the crowd of people who came to greet the doctors ranged from the mundane […]

Jacquie Golding-Duffy talks to Jill Chisholm, the woman at the helm of SABC television, about the successes and failures of the new- look channels The new-look SABC has some distance to travel before its revamped schedules are up to scratch. While television head Jill Chisholm is by-and-large pleased with the relaunch, she concedes that schedule […]

Gaye Davis CONDOMS should be distributed to prisoners and those with HIV or Aids should no longer be segregated, a special work group investigating health care in South African jails has recommended. The Department of Correctional Services has always ruled out condoms for inmates on the grounds that this would encourage sodomy, which is illegal […]

Last week’s article by Louise Flanagan on Military Intelligence attempts to recruit future Minister of Defence Joe Modise in the early 1990s has provoked a furious row. Here, Deputy Defence Minister Ronnie Kasrils responds — as does the reporter HAVING distinguished itself as a bastion of the free press, and for many years under siege […]

Recipients of generous ‘golden handshakes’ continue to occupy management positions at Pact, reports HAZEL FRIEDMAN ACCUSATIONS of golden handshakes and secret slush funds are being hurled at Pact’s upper echelons following the recent discovery of a mysterious “employer’s fund” set up years ago by Pact management. A substantial percentage of the fund, which in total […]

The offices of the attorneys general around the country are virtually bare, reports Vuyo Mvoko OFFICES of the attorneys general in Gauteng and the Cape are heading for a crisis as senior prosecutors make a dash for entry to the Bar before it closes next week — undermining a whole spate of “third force” trials […]

Karen Harverson Corporate fraud is on the increase and it’s costing companies millions of rands each year. In many cases, companies are reluctant to bring a criminal case against the perpetrator — frequently an employee. “Companies are scared to bring criminal charges for a number of reasons, be it their reputation, lack of knowledge of […]

1 Mr Phakhiti, 35-year-old black male, murdered in Thembisa, Gauteng 2Nimrod Mhlongo, 23-year-old black male, shot in Gauteng 3 Unidentified 25-year-old black male, shot in Pretoria, Gauteng 4Brian Mego, 25-year-old black male, murdered in Lenasia, Gauteng 5Petrus Jama Khumalo, 43-year-old black male, shot in Katlehong, Gauteng 6Unidentified, race unknown, 18-year-old stabbed in Boksburg, Gauteng 7Thabo […]

CINEMA: Andrew Worsdale LIKE a film by Quentin Tarantino, Get Shorty begins in a diner. And, like a Tarantino movie, it has lots of characters who go off on wild monologues about the weather and, specifically, about Orson Welles’s Touch of Evil: main guy John Travolta is an obsessive movie fan. In Get Shorty, Tarantino […]

Have the ANC’s young lions turned into pussycats? Rehana Rossouw looks at the dilemmas facing the ANC Youth League THERE was a time when the African National Congress Youth League’s leaders roared and the security establishment’s grip automatically tightened on its rifle butts. This was the 1980s — when the ANCYL was one of the […]

We chose a mid-month weekend, a Friday, Saturday and Sunday — and tried to get a sense of how many died, where, and how. South Africa is one of the most violent societies in the world — and the murder victims are often faceless, unidentified bodies, buried in unmarked graves. In one ordinary weekend in […]

It was a first: an advertisement flighted simultaneously on all four channels. And it cost millions. Hazel Friedman watched the advert which brought mysticism to the concrete industry Strange, inexplicable sightings have been known to take place on the SABC from time-to- time. But nothing could rival the image onslaught that hit viewers during prime-time […]

Marion Edmunds It was a casual weekend — Hernus Kriel was wearing baggy tracksuit pants, Sheila Camerer a light pink slack suit, John Mavuso designer moccasins and FW de Klerk a checked shirt. But behind the informality and bonhomie in Hermanus, the Nats were in deadly earnest. “Tell me,” said De Klerk, leaning in earnest […]

The Budget must set the stage for investment growth if Thabo Mbeki’s ambitious employment plan is to succeed, writes Madeleine Wackernagel Thabo Mbeki’s ambitious blueprint for economic growth and job creation brings into sharp focus the need for the “right” Budget on March 13. Without the building blocks to encourage foreign and local investment, the […]

Justin Pearce SOMEWHERE in the suburbs of Pretoria, religious prejudices have collided with a roadsign. Last year, the directorate of roads erected signs on the N1 Eastern Bypass indicating a recommended speed limit for night driving. The signs show a crescent moon and a star together with the recommended speed. Then suddenly, towards the end […]

The special horror of the terrorists’ bomb is only heightened when it shatters a period of apparent peace. The Israeli people are reeling from the same sense of double shock which hit Britain two weeks ago. Not only was the bomb on Jaffa Road devastating in its destruction of human life, but it came after […]

Karen Harverson South Africa’s corporate standards are being polluted by corruption, and the toll on the country is far higher than the mere monetary value. For example, corruption in Nigeria was initially accepted as a way of “getting the job done” — and so the cost of corruption was less than its monetary value because […]

Justin Pearce ‘IN Cuba only a few old people have TB,” explained Dr Leandro Ruyz. “In 1959 we had a revolution — and everyone born after that was vaccinated at birth.” A day after arriving in South Africa from Cuba, Ruyz was sitting in the superintendent’s office at Klerksdorp Hospital, a facebrick pile where the […]

Next week sees the beginning of the end of one of the most sordid chaptersin South Africa’s history. Ann Eveleth previews the Malan trial History will also be in the dock when the multiple murder trial of former defence minister Magnus Malan and 19 other security force officers gets under way next week. As it […]

Gaye Davis MINISTER Zola Skweyiya’s announcement of a radical shake-up for the Public Service Commission (PSC) — often cited by government ministers and officials as the biggest obstacle to the country’s transformation — faces a rearguard action. The Forum of Commissions — a non-statutory body comprising the national PSC and eight provincial PSCs — intends […]

Madeleine Wackernagel Thabo Mbeki and his team returned tired but triumphant from the World Economic Forum in Switzerland on Wednesday. The deputy president was well-received, with fund managers clamouring to get a slice of the most popular emerging markets cake. While nothing concrete in the form of rands and cents came out of the five-day […]

Nicole Fritz Television critics at South Africa’s largest daily newspapers have generally given the thumbs-up to the SABC’s new programme line-up on its three television channels. But Beeld’s critic Andries Cornelissen is critical of the continued use of dubbing. If the SABC wants to reflect South African society, it musn’t look to dubbed programmes. Afrikaans […]

Stefaans Brummer THE media are under renewed attack in some African countries, if a recent spate of arrests and bannings, and an apparent assassination attempt are anything to go by. The Post of Zambia, long a thorn in the side of President Frederick Chiluba, this week came under the strongest censure from government yet, when […]

RUGBY: Jon Swift TRANSVAAL, the side which fell from grace last season after a run of two years when virtually every trophy on offer became theirs as if by right, have begun to formulate their renaissance. At the base of this are two things: the reinstatement of coach Kitch Christie at the helm he carries […]

Lynda Loxton The huge disparities in income distribution in South Africa make it vital that any tax system takes into account ways in which to lessen the impact on the poorest of the poor. One easy and obvious way would be to zero-rate as many basic necessities from value-added tax (VAT) as possible. At the […]

The hype and glory of the African Nations Cup created new enthusiasm for soccer in South Africa. Now it has to be harnessed for the good of the local game SOCCER: Mark Gleeson IT is amazing how quickly the poor crowd attendance, erratic shooting and errant referees were forgotten in the euphoria of South Africas […]

Participant PETER KLATZOW reports on the highlights of Africa’s first International Composers Workshop SOUTH African composers have learned to accept the fact that there are fat years and lean years. The feast or famine syndrome is dangerous, primarily because the ingestion of so much new music in so short a time can lead to cultural […]

A one percent party has taught the Inkatha Freedom Party a lesson of biblical proportions, writes Ann Eveleth When push finally came to shove it took a political David to bring Goliath to his knees and turn KwaZulu- Natal’s interminable constitutional process on its head. Holding out for a controversial clause prohibiting abortion, the minuscule […]

Nicole Fritz and Rehana Rossouw Mongezi Stofile was one of thousands of former MK members who reported this week to the Doornkop military base outside Johannesburg to demobilise from the South African National Defence Force (SANDF). He no longer wishes to serve in the military, and went to Doornkop to take advantage of a package […]