Staff Reporter

Controversy is raging over tenders for the South African Airways corporate identity design. Neil Bierbaum reports A CALL for tenders by South African Airways (SAA) for the redesign of its corporate identity has been slammed as a front by applicants who fear that the appointment might have already been made. In the scramble to pitch, […]

Reg Rumney reports on the potential of the electric vehicle MENTION “electric car”to your average motorist and you will be greeted with scepticism. They are probably thinking of the homely, battery-powered vans that once used to deliver milk to the sleepy suburbs. Or the ill-fated three-wheeler that made inventor Sir Clive Sinclair a laughing stock. […]

Lynda Loxton LOCAL government is facing “an affordability crunch”that could have long-term consequences for the delivery of services by newly-elected local governments. Development Bank of Southern Africa policy co- ordination manager Chris Heymans last week told a parliamentry select committee hearing on local government that a great deal of innovative thinking would be needed on […]

Bronwen Jones TEARS and righteousness make a potent mix in an angry young woman out to fight the wealth and might of big industry. Sitting atop a crumbledown dam looking over her community, Rene Smith, 21, adjusts blue rimmed spectacles and says: “We will not let them build their dam on our doorsteps. We will […]

A tiny farming community near Cape Town has accused the Moravian Church of robbing it of its inheritance and now wants to take legal action, reports Rehana Rossouw FORTY years after an eccentric Scotswoman left all her wordly goods to her coloured farmworkers, the Moravian Church stands accused of betraying the instructions in her will […]

TV broadcasters are promoting themselves at their advertising clients’ expense, according to a recent report, writes Neil Bierbaum THE enormous amount of airtime being devoted to TV stations’ own programme promotions is significantly increasing the amount of advertising clutter, thereby making it increasingly costly for advertisers to achieve the same noting levels. This opinion is […]

The structure — not just the colour — of South Africa’s newspaper industry is where the real problem lies, writes Bruce Cohen CARL NIEHAUS should know better. As one of the African National Congress’ key media liaison figures during the run-up to the April 1994 elections, he got to know the press as well as […]

Adam Sweeting RECORDING a James Bond theme demands more dignified attributes than mere pop stardom, as Duran Duran demonstrated with A View to a Kill — stupid title, pathetic song, crap movie. Even wily pop veteran Paul McCartney found it difficult to shake and stir the perfect Bond cocktail, and his Live and Let Die […]

Rehana Rossouw BRIAN is a Cape Town engineer now attending counselling sessions, who said he physically and sexually abused his wife because he wanted to control her and because he could. His wife Lynne, the owner of a successful restaurant in Cape Town, tried to leave him at least 18 times during their six-year marriage […]

Brenda Fassie, South Africa’s bad-girl singer, in THE MARK GEVISSER PROFILE ‘HOW can I make you smile?” I asked an enraged Brenda Fassie, dressed in baby-pink denim cutoffs and throwing the contents of her handbag around my car with the jerky impetuousness of a seriously cold turkey as we drove away from her latest humiliation […]

THE day Susan Sithole died, abuse activists, counsellors and government officials met in Cape Town at a national conference organised by the Department of Welfare under the banner “Women in Africa won’t be beaten — unite to end violence”. Catholic Welfare Development counsellor Charles Maisel challenged participants to extend their services to the perpetrators of […]

Visitors to the Western Cape may be on the increase but is it equipped to cope with the rush? asks Lynda Loxton THE Western Cape tourism sector has finally taken off — and run straight into a wall of infrastructural bottlenecks because of low investment that could be its undoing. This was the warning from […]

A game between Austria and South Africa team showed that being in a wheelchair doesn’t limit the skill and excitement BASKETBALL:Julian Drew WHEN I set out last Friday evening to watch my first ever wheelchair basketball game I must admit I was a little doubtful about how much excitement there could be in such a […]

For Helge Janssen, cult status’ has meant an 18-year career on the margins of the artworld. He spoke to HAZEL FRIEDMAN EVERY city has its cultural heroes, those living legends who define the times (and themselves) by defying the norms. Durban had Helg Janssen, DJ, designer, film-maker, performance artist and painter, tapping into the psyche […]

EARLIER this week General Magnus Malan gave a briefing to the Foreign Correspondents Association, devoted to his forthcoming trial on murder charges. He did so in defiance of advice from his lawyers who, he related, were concerned that he might be in breach of the sub judice rule. Rare as it is for this newspaper […]

They’ve had a long, hard season and several key members of their squad are weary after representing the national team, but Orlando Pirates can rise to the occasion against Ivory Coast’s Asec Mimosa SOCCER:Lungile Madywabe DESPITE the national team’s recent triumph in the Four Nations tournament, there is still a belief that South African football […]

ANGLO AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL CORPORATION (AMIC) has invested R117-million in a South African safety syringe plant to be set up in Somerset The project, due to be commissioned by the end of 1996, signals Anglo’s entry into the medical consumables and equipment market. Safety syringes can only be used once and reduce the risk to healthcare […]

Wits University groups have rejected the tribunal set up to investigate the allegations against Makgoba, reports Philippa THE stage is set for further conflict at Wits University around the inquiry into deputy vice- chancellor Malegapuru Makgoba. The Wits Transformation Front (WTF) and Academic Staff Association have rejected the manner in which the tribunal — which […]

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 […]

Marion Edmunds SOUTH AFRICAN Broadcasting Corporation decision-makers are considering changing the course of SAfm and going for a niche market by targeting the new South African elite. The station has lost 25 percent of its advertising this year and, as reported last week, its audience is a paltry 250 000. A small team — headed […]

Justin Pearce THERE’S music floating over the boxy, red- brick buildings of the University of the North: the creamy sounds of Kenny G’s saxophone. The music is issuing from a loudspeaker on the wall of the student centre, the home of Radio Turf. Inside the studio, science student Thapelo Sehume is behind the microphone, chatting […]

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 […]

THEATRE: David Le Page IN February 1956, in the foothills of the Drakensberg near Bergville, a group of Zulu dagga farmers took severe umbrage when the South African Police attempted a raid on their crop. It was, after all, not only a traditional indulgence, but their livelihood. At first the police retreated, but it was […]

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 — […]

The tragedy of Susan Sithole, abandoned by love and the system. Rehana Rossouw reports ‘PAIN,” wrote Susan Sithole, “is wearing my husband’s face.” On Saturday — International Day of No Violence Against Women — the pain came to an end. Her husband is in jail on a murder charge. The tragic story of Susan Sithole […]

Evelyn Groenink DUTCH do-gooders have run into flak at home for handing out R20-million to South African political parties without any built-in checks and balances on how the money is spent. The organisation giving the money is the Foundation for the New South Africa (FSA), which is made up of representatives of political parties in […]

For the first time in years, Rockey Street, the pulse of trendy Yeoville, is free of drug pushers loitering on corners, writes Janine Lazarus IT has taken the murder of restaurateur Ridley Wright to clear the streets of pushers who had turned this colourful suburb into the newest drugs mecca of South Africa. Wright was […]

Urban planners, white suburbs, and the homeless are locked in a struggle of competing needs, writes Justin Pearce POLITICAL squabbling has halted Johannesburg’s plans to house its homeless. Shack settlements have proliferated in the city while municipal and provincial authorities have failed to reach a universally acceptable plan to accommodate squatters in formal housing. At […]