Staff Reporter

Will religious and traditional law take precedence over equality in the new Constitution? Etienne Mureinik looks at The Gender Question IS the Constitution good for women? Both the interim Constitution and the final one now being written are constitutions to undo apartheid and its legacy. The ideal of equality is therefore a central constitutional value, […]

Research into teacher training has revealed that the system is not making the grade, writes Philippa Garson THE first national teacher education audit to be conducted in South Africa has uncovered an alarmingly inadequate teacher education system in need of fundamental restructuring. Results of the audit, released this week, show that the quality of teacher […]

Marion Edmunds FREE State Premier Patrick Lekota is concerned that the African National Congress-aligned Congress of Traditional Leaders (Contralesa) is spreading its tentacles into the Free State. He has raised the matter with Eastern Cape Premier Raymond Mhlaba. Lekota’s concern adds to growing anxiety among ANC leaders about the role of traditional leaders in the […]

Marion Edmunds THE Bophuthatswana Broadcasting Corporation’s (BopBC) new highly paid chief executive, Cawe Mhlati, has been stung with accusations of reneging on agreements with the SABC after less than a week in the broadcaster’s hot SABC officials have criticised her for her conduct in meetings to discuss the future of public broadcasting in South Africa. […]

The transport minister is embroiled in allegations that he has linked ministerial support of Cape Town’s Olympic bid with moving Parliament to Pretoria, reports Rehana Rossouw IN a remarkable war of words, leaders campaigning to keep Parliament in the Mother City this week repeated claims that Transport Minister Mac Maharaj wanted to link his department’s […]

With help from big business, an Mpumalanga community has improved its educational lot, writes Rowan Callaghan THE dank cell-like rooms of the former mine hostel still have rusty bunks stacked against the wall and the old coal stove still occupies centre stage on the cold cement floor. Listen carefully and you may just hear the […]

The power sector has come under the spotlight lately and is an issue of major concern for sub-Saharan countries, reports Meshack Mabogoane ATTEMPTS to restructure parastatals in the sub-continent have been the focus of fundamental discussions recently. Two conferences, addressing this issue and setting scenarios for market-related developments and economic changes, have been held in […]

A proposed waterfront development in Durban’s run-down Point is being plagued by controversy, report Ann Eveleth and David THREE of the world’s most colourful businessmen — Australian media mogul Kerry Packer, legendary British gambler John Aspinall, and Anglo-French “Marmite king” Jimmy “Goldenballs” Goldsmith — have been caught up in a furious investment squabble over Durban’s […]

CINEMA: Justin Pearce THE unique charms of Zero Patience can be gleaned from a quick run through of this film’s musical numbers: a bluesy solo sung by a blonde, beehived HIV virus; a Victorian scientist, who has discovered the secret of eternal youth, delivering an ode to enlightenment values, called Let’s All Be Empiricists; a […]

Gencor, has become a jewel in the mining industry, but can it smooth out its internal policy problems, asks Karen Harverson GENCOR’S transformation from an unwieldy conglomerate with a myriad of unrelated interests into an international mining group, focused on mining and metals, has been accomplished with aplomb. Through the foresight of Derek Keys, appointed […]

Simon Segal EVIDENCE is mounting that foreign investment in South Africa is picking up and could well be higher than popular perception has it. Information services group BusinessMap SA, the only known source to be developing a database that monitors foreign investment, calculates that since the elections last April some R8,5- billion has been committed […]

Gaye Davis THE man in charge of compiling the document which will lay the basis for South Africa’s future foreign policy was in charge of the Department of Foreign Affairs’ “image- building” section at a time when sanctions were beginning to bite hard. Dr Gerrit Olivier returned this month from his posting as South Africa’s […]

Shakespeare meets Frank N Furter in Fred Abrahamse’s sci-fi musical at the Baxter. MARC DEVENISH reports RETURN to the Forbidden Planet, the intergalactic funfair that has bounced on to the Baxter Theatre stage in Cape Town, has been performed in 16 countries, from London’s West End to Norway, Alaska and Australia. It has even been […]

Mail & Guardian Reporter ALTHOUGH the Comoros Islands have reopened for South African holiday-makers in the wake of Bob Denard’s abortive coup in October, the “Perfume Isles” are still being battered by other political storms. Political leaders on Moheli Island, one of the largest in the Comoros complex, last weekend announced they no longer recognise […]

The Internet is the latest target of Richard OA Day in the Life’ Smolan, writes Annicia ON February 8 1996, more than 100 professional photojournalists from around the world will be working on a 24-hour project to find the pictures that tell the story of how the Internet has changed people’s lives. This is Rick […]

Klaus von Lieres, ex-Wits attorney general and now KwaMakhutha trial defence counsel, in THE MARK GEVISSER PROFILE OI’M glad,” said one particularly laconic senior counsel after the opening of the Trial of the Generals in Durban last week, “to see that Klaus is feeling a little better.” The comment was a reference to the fact […]

Strong medicine, negotiated by all stakeholders, has been prescribed to salvage the taxi industry, reports Karen Harverson THE embattled taxi industry may be on the road to recovery following the interim report of the National Taxi Task Team (NTTT) which was presented to Transport Minister Mac Maharaj The report’s recommendations — which could cost the […]

HOME Affairs Minister Mangosuthu Buthelezi came close to being arrested and charged with the KwaMakhutha murders, according to sources involved in the investigation. Buthelezi’s name appears several times in the documents that describe events leading to the formation of the Caprivi 200, the hit-squad unit whose members allegedly massacred 13 civilians in 1987. Most important […]

Philippa Garson THE crisis at Wits University around suspended deputy vice-chancellor Malegapuru Makgoba has taken on national proportions as direct ministerial intervention becomes increasingly Yesterday Minister Sibusiso Bengu met with vice-chancellor Robert Charlton and other university stakeholders in an attempt to put the brakes on Wits’ rollercoaster ride into disaster. Political squabbles have now erupted […]

Western Cape Local Government MEC Peter Marais, whose boundary demarcation plan was rejected in court this week, is at the centre of a new election controversy, reports Rehana A NEW local government row is looming in the Western Cape over Local Government MEC Peter Marais’ refusal to prepare new legislation for rural local elections or […]

ROCK/POP: Chris Roper JOURNALISTS eager to gain space on the shelf allocated to “world music” have expended many words documenting the emergence of new “ethnic South African music”. But few seem to have noticed a metamorphosis taking place in a heretofore Eurocentric area of local music: the white male rock band. Yep, even these colonial […]

Justin Pearce ALEXANDRA’S Far East Bank squatters will soon be back in court, when Johannesburg’s Eastern Metropolitan Substructure tries, where the provincial government failed, to have the squatters evicted. Last week, after a blaze of publicity condemning the squatters as “land invaders”, Premier Tokyo Sexwale’s government failed in a supreme court application to have the […]

RARELY in South African public life can a document have been produced which is as politically explosive as the 64-page indictment (including addenda) presented last Friday in the Magnus Malan case. What makes it paradoxical is that there are, as of yet, no political repercussions. The explanation, of course, is that it is an indictment […]

Malan trial: Before the KwaMakhutha massacre, there was the Mpophomeni massacre. Both were connected to the SADF’s military support of Hazel Friedman THE murder of three union shop stewards on a lonely road near Mpophomeni on the night of December 5 1986 will be remembered as the beginning of the most violent period in this […]

Karen Harverson A ROW within the ranks of the black construction industry may damage its initiative to fund a developmental programme for emerging black contractors. The programme is aimed at helping black contractors acquire the skills necessary to participate in the mainstream construction industry. All contractors wishing to be part of the home building industry […]

JOHANNESBURG was adorned with newspaper placards on Sunday trumpeting the latest atrocity of the criminal classes: “The burglars that use gas.” Those with the five rand required to be entertained by the newspaper were entertained by the disclosure that the good people of Lenasia have been reduced to a state of panic over the latest […]

Mail & Guardian reporter A TEAM of prosecutors worked around the clock this week putting the final touches to the 40-odd-page indictment against former defence minister Magnus Malan and nine others. Malan, former Military Intelligence chief General Tienie Groenewald and eight other former and serving officers are charged with murder, attempted murder and conspiracy to […]

Mapo-MiG has spread its wings to South Africa and offers huge opportunities to local contractors, reports Karen Harverson RUSSIA’S oldest aircraft manufacturer, the Moscow Aircraft Production Organisation — Mikoyan and Gurevich (Mapo-MiG), has opened an office in South Africa. Director Peter Malan says the office’s main function will be to provide technical support, training and […]

SOME staff members of the African Languages Department have expressed outrage at the way Makgoba handled their former acting head, Robert Herbert, an American academic. In a letter seen by the Mail & Guardian, Makgoba declined a request from Herbert for the renewed contract of one of his staff members, and then told Herbert that […]

SLOWLY DUMA SKHOSANA, convicted “Sharpeville Six” murderer, is breaking his hunger strike, but he remains resolute to force a retrial to prove his Skhosana (38) has gone back to “prison” volutarily. Sentenced and convicted with five others for the 1984 mob murder of Sharpeville deputy mayor Jacob Khuzwayo Dhlamini, he is staging a sleep-in and […]

Hazel Friedman ARMSTRONG BADUZA (52) recalls the day Archbishop Trevor Huddleston arrived at his father’s house in Soweto armed with musical instruments. “I was too young to play but those who managed became international stars,” he says. “I became a wandering star instead.” He also remembers his father leading the residents of Alexandra Township — […]

Vuyo Mvoko ‘THE World in Soweto” — a project to be launched today by President Nelson Mandela — will give foreign governments the chance to make their mark on one of South Africa’s biggest and most famous townships. According to the project’s founder and co- ordinator, Zelda Mantle, it is envisaged that a foreign country […]