Staff Reporter

As the symbols of the past moved out, the RDP moved in to kick-start the process of parliamentary transformation, write Richard Calland and Christelle Terreblanche THE long-awaited transformation of Parliament, driven by Speaker Frene Ginwala of the African National Congress, will be paid for by a one-off grant of R82,5-million from the coffers of the […]

THE SABC’s launch of three new television channels on Sunday night complete with jumbo jet, lasers, Stevie Wonder and Nelson Mandela was the most spectacular launch this country has seen. If it was the national broadcaster’s intention to show self-confidence and razzmatazz, it was a great success, with 150 minutes and R3,8-million of often-breathtaking extravaganza. […]

Selecting which teams and individuals will represent South Africa at the Olympics is a controversial task, and the decision on the hockey team is a particularly hard one, writes Julian Drew ON Saturday morning in Durban Sam Ramsamy, president of the National Olympic Committee of South Africa (Nocsa), will announce the first contingent of competitors […]

CINEMA: Andrew Worsdale HUEY NEWTON, one of the founders of the Black Panther movement, was a great fan of Melvin Van Peebles’s 1971 movie Sweet Sweetback’s Baadassss Song. He even analysed that funky box-office smash, writing that its tale of a hustler who evolves into a revolutionary was an allegory of a `street brother who […]

Pro-democracy strikes brought Swaziland to a standstill. But the grip of the monarchy is a strong one to break, reports Stefaans Brmmer `PATIENCE pays’, the inscription on the back of the bus admonished would-be overtakers as it rambled over Swaziland’s hills. The legend might as well be a national motto: it would explain why Swaziland […]

Rehana Rossouw Human Rights Commission chairman Reverend Barney Pityana was due to be admitted as an attorney of the Cape Town Supreme Court on Friday– almost 20 years after receiving his law degree. His repeated attempts to enrol as an attorney earlier had been thwarted by police persecution. In an affidavit to the court, Pityana […]

THEATRE: Hazel Friedman Those who are unacquainted with Greek tragedy may yet be vaguely familiar with the myth of Medea — the woman who murdered her sons when her husband dumped her to become king. But even audiences who were struck by Pier Paolo Pasolini’s 1970 film version — with its bizarre exploration of Freudian […]

Preserved heads found in a British museum are set to stir up a diplomatic controversy, reports Eddie Koch Hard on the heels of well-publicised plans by Chief Nicholas Gcaleka to set off for Scotland in search of Xhosa warrior king Sandile’s skull comes news of another grisly discovery: five dried-out `bushmen’ heads stored in cardboard […]

Dirk Hartford It was reminiscent of the heady mass struggles of the Eighties. For four hours last Sunday, several hundred trade unionists listened to fiery speeches from workers and trade union leaders denouncing the government and its policy of national reconciliation as a `national disaster’ between songs praising socialism as the only road to liberation. […]

The Nation of Islam leader spoke during his vist to South Africa this week of creating a homeland for more than a million black American convicts, report Vuyo Mvoko and David Beresford Louis Farrakhan, the Black American firebrand who is trying to fill the shoes of Martin Luther King, has dreamed an extraordinary dream — […]

Gaye Davis and Rehana Rossouw THE policeman at the centre of the row over allegations that the National Intelligence Agency was spying on top policemen will not be undergoing a lie-detector test, police said this week. Crime Investigation Service spokesman, senior superintendent Faizel Kader, said superintendent H Moodley had volunteered for a polygraph test, but […]

Thabo Mbeki has accused the print media of a go-slow on affirmative action. Jacquie Golding-Duffy surveys the industry to see if this is true On a head count, local newspapers have not done particularly well in furthering the cause of affirmative action. With more than 80% of the local media controlled by four players, namely: […]

Philippa Garson To pay or not to pay? That is the politically loaded question. Whether school fees should be compulsory is being hotly debated in government circles and is holding up the implementation of new education policy for schools. If the government goes for minimum free education for all it risks losing wealthier parents — […]

Stefaans Brmmer A late-night visit by Mpumalanga Premier Matthews Phosa has failed, for now, to steer Swaziland’s young monarch towards democracy, but diplomats believe the steady application of `friendly’ pressure from, among others, President Nelson Mandela, will bear fruit. South Africa’s Foreign Affairs Department remained adamant this week it would not `interfere’ in Swaziland’s domestic […]

South African import duties are preventing the sounds of music from reaching the man in the street, reports Jacquie Golding-Duffy The South African company which manufactures wind-up radios has appealed to Deputy President Thabo Mbeki to lift crippling import costs which have scuppered local sales. Cape Town-based BayGen Power Manufacturing, which launched the radio last […]

Simon Segal JUST what does the Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) office, officially called the Development Planning branch of the President’s Office, do? Is criticism around its delivery fair? Deputy director general Bernie Fanaroff is clear that the office has three primary functions: l Development planning: This is the mobilisation of resources to match societal […]

Jacquie Golding-Duffy THE `new-look’ SABC will hit our screens on February 5 when SABC 1, 2 and 3 take over the reins from CCV, TV1 and NNTV respectively. The grand reshuffling of programmes is an attempt to reach particular language groups at the provincial level. The provincial broadcasts will, at first, be half an hour […]

A row has arisen over illegal funding to self-protection units, writes Anne Eveleth A departmental secretary in Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi’s former homeland office, Stan Armstrong, is being named as a key player in the illegal funding row in which R8,6-million in taxpayers’ money was paid to members of Inkatha’s paramilitary self-protection units (SPUs). KwaZulu-Natal administrative […]

Bop Broadcasting is forging ahead with new programmes despite the prospect of losing its government funding, reports Jacquie Golding-Duffy Bophuthatswana Broadcasting Corporation (BopBC) is digging in its heels against integration with the SABC, despite having only two months before government funding is cut-off. Representative of the North-West premier Willie Modise said BopBC were intending to […]

Rehana Rossouw In a field on the edge of Parkwood Estate in Cape Town is a ramshackle wooden building with a tiny garden lending a splash of colour to the dreary township. The garden is filled with petunias, marigolds, tomatoes, cabbages … and dagga. This is the home of Bernard Brown of the Burning Spear […]

Philippa Garson MANY Soweto primary schools are half empty this year as tens of thousands of parents have chosen to send their children to schools in wealthier suburbs. In yet another irony thrown up by our skewed education system, many previously crowded Soweto schools have been abandoned by the township constituency. Instead, parents are sending […]

Louis Farrakhan visited South Africa to spread his message of segregation, to search for a homeland for the United States’ convicts and to try and borrow a bit of Nelson Mandela’s aura. One could not help but notice that he connected best in radio talk-back shows with South Africa’s far-rightwing ethnic separatists. It is coincidental […]

Leon Perlman South Africa is about to enter the exclusive space satellite club with the launch of an affordable 50kg bar-fridge-sized micro-satellite dubbed SunSat. The locally-designed and built satellite will provide data transfer and remote sensing facilities for the Southern African region. The United States Space Agency, Nasa, is sponsoring the SunSat launch, expected at […]

Andrew Worsdale VETERAN South African film-maker Jamie Uys, who died of a heart attack on Monday aged 76, was often berated by progressive film-makers and academics for being a paternalistic racist who trivialised both nature and black people in his movies. In reality, however, he was a true film fantasist who operated within the confines […]

The pundits overseas favour Rome, but there is a strong argument for South Africa being the favourites to win the race for the 2004 Olympics, writes Julian Drew THE 11 candidates for the 2004 Olympic Games have only travelled three weeks along the 21-month obstacle course that will culminate in the awarding of the Games […]

The debate over unbundling is once again heating up, reports Aspasia Karras Unbundling has, to a large extent, been viewed as one of the panaceas of the South African economic environment. The Reconstruction and Development Programme considered unbundling as a major solution to the question of competition and black business empowerment, arguing that if the […]

Eddie Koch Griqua leaders have sent a letter to President Nelson Mandela to back demands for the bones of a 19th-century chief to be returned and reburied after they were dug up by researchers from Wits University more than 30 years ago. The Griqua National Conference this week sent a statement to M&G saying it […]

An installation at the Johannesburg Art Gallery reveals surprising new dimensions to traditional African art and craft, reports RUTH SACK THE status of traditional African crafts and artefacts in Western museums has long been a question of unending debate. Over the years it has been possible to observe, in our museums and galleries, how versions […]

Karen Harverson Newly appointed chief executive of the Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA) Ian Goldin may face an uphill battle from some of the bank’s staff who feel a black candidate would have been more suited to lead its transformation. For the past 18 months the bank has been racked with mass departures, and […]

After the stunning display against Ghana South Africa have to lift themselves once again to take on the wily, talented Tunisians SOCCER: Paul Mandelson JOHN MOSHOEU, Mark Fish, Lucas Radebe and Clive Barker must have had countless dreams — asleep and wide awake — about crucial tackles, glorious goals and winning the African Cup of […]

This week Africa’s largest banker, Absa, decided to reassure its perplexed staff about the `Bob Aldworth’ affair.

With the revival of foreign tourism to South Africa, an enterprising businessman has initiated bureaux de change shops, reports Lynda Loxton Free-standing foreign exchange `shops’ have been a common sight for South African travellers abroad, but something foreign exchange-strapped South African authorities have definitely not encouraged. All of that changed this week when it was […]