Staff Reporter

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

After 13 years, Art Against Apartheid is in South Africa — and destined to hang in Parliament. But, asks HAZEL FRIEDMAN, is this where it belongs? FOR years it has borne the distinction of being the art world’s open secret: an international art exhibition assembled as a tribute to South Africa’s first democratically elected government. […]

Rehana Rossouw The prostitute’s corpse was found buried upside down in bushes near Milnerton in November 1995, her legs and buttocks protruding above the ground. The post mortem revealed she had probably been buried alive. This month another body was found in bushes near Durbanville, and police announced a serial killer was on the loose […]

ROCK: Hazel Friedman A STRANGE sense of dej vu permeated last weekend’s Crosby Stills and Nash concert in Johannesburg. Attended by a small but frenzied crowd of followers, the show served as a nostalgic reminder of an era which, for many South Africans, was like the sexy older woman next door. We were the pimply, […]

Obituary:Harold Wolpe Colin Bundy “Everything I have written in these lectures underlines the importance to the intellectual of passionate engagement, risk, exposure, commitment to principles, vulnerability in debating and being involved in worldly causes.” (Edward Said, Representations of the Late last year, Harold Wolpe flew from Cape Town to deliver some lectures in Sheffield. In […]

Vuyo Mvoko WHILE most former homeland radio stations are preparing to wind down their businesses, Bophuthatswana Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is tying its shoelaces. It is the employment this month of top journalists Sefako Nyaka and Frances Majola to top executive positions within the corporation which raised eyebrows. They are head of TV news and of […]

When it comes to advertisements in magazines, women are being discriminated against by the ad industry. Surely, the time has come for equality in advertising, writes Ricardo Dunn Women’s magazine publishers believe they can’t secure advertising for products that have traditionally been thought of as “male” because of the prejudice among advertising agencies and clients. […]

Philippa Garson CONSTRUCTIVE steps to solve Wits University’s crisis were taken at this week’s council meeting, and indications are that all parties to the dispute have agreed on a way forward. The council has mandated four of its high- profile members — Nthato Motlana, Enos Mabuza, Bobby Godsell and Ken Maxwell — to revive the […]

Edwina Spicer spoke to Margaret Dongo, the woman who took on Robert Mugabe and his Zanu PF party, and won ‘WILL someone remove this barking dog from our midst” President Robert Mugabe is reported to have said of Margaret Dongo, MP for Harare South, during the run-up to Zimbabwe’s general elections last year. Dongo lost […]

Eddie Koch Evidence at the Eugene de Kock trial this week provided insight into the tremendous psychological pressures members of the police death squads at Vlakplaas operated under — and the therapeutic effects offered by their opportunity to tell the truth. “They beat me up to the point of submission, to the point of death […]

Stefaans BrUmmer WERNER VAN GREUNEN — who this week implicated Deputy President Thabo Mbeki when he claimed to have spied on “National Party” and “Broederbond” municipal officials in Gauteng — was a National Intelligence Agency (NIA) “source”. But it appears his brief went no further than to report on threats against last November’s local government […]

CINEMA: Andrew Worsdale LET’S get one thing straight. Amblin Entertainment, those nice guys who gave the world ET and have now brought us To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar, will never, ever, make a good movie about drag queens. They may have enough money to secure the most fabulous outfits in the world, […]

were too afraid to ask Fear and loathing and confusion surround the Absa saga. Justin Pearce gives a guide to all the main players in the drama IT’S been a sweaty fortnight for anyone who may have put their fingers into an Absa till in the past five years. The first beads of perspiration would […]

Justin Arenstein As anti-monarchist and labour protests in Swaziland continued this week, a prominent human rights campaigner claimed the country’s ruler, King Mswati III, appears to have been sidelined in a palace coup. Ironically, although the protests are directed against Swaziland’s Tinkhudla traditionalist system of government, the 27-year-old absolute monarch remains popular with the Swaziland […]

The Masakhane campaign is floundering as politicians dither over ultimate control, reports Gaye Davis THE three ministers in charge of the Masakhane Campaign are unable to agree who should take ultimate control of it and are fighting what one official described as an “unseemly turf battle” — putting the R30-million strategy to improve living conditions […]

Deficits are still the norm in many OECD member countries, and South Africa is no exception, reports Simon Segal GOVERNMENT’S budget deficit, now likely to be above 6% of gross domestic product (GDP) for this fiscal year (5,8% or R29-billion was budgeted for last March), blights an otherwise impressive economic record that boasts the most […]

South Africa’s World Cup squad is a blend of experienced players mixed with stars of the CRICKET: Jon Swift THE SELECTION of the tour squad for the World Cup in Pakistan is an intriguing combination; a mixture of those with the experience of abject failure on the Indian sub-continent and those still carrying the aura […]

REASON has triumphed over fantasy in the Palestinian elections. Yasser Arafat’s landslide victory is an overwhelming endorsement of the peace process, and reflects a growing view among the Palestinians that their aspirations for an independent state are more likely to be gained by negotiation than by terrorism. The election result is also a vindication of […]

SOCCER: Lungile Madywabe THE legendary Pele once declared that it is better to play well and lose than to play badly and win, but South Africa did not play very well in their 1-0 loss to Egypt on South Africa still ended top of the group, equal on points with Egypt but ahead on goal […]

Bantu Holomisa, deputy minister of tourism and environmental affairs, in The Mark Gevisser ‘My friend,” says Bantu Holomisa with his trademark imp-twinkle when asked about his role as deputy minister and his political ambitions, “you must remember that I have already tasted power. Absolute power. I’ve been there. I’ve had it all. Now I’m just […]