Staff Reporter

Cinema: Derek Malcolm CHRIS MONGER, the writer-director of The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain, once made an existential thriller called Voice-Over, which was shown at the Edinburgh Festival and was radical enough to suggest that the last thing he would do would be to escape Wales for Los Angeles […]

* Following Oom Krisjan’s observations about the Democratic Party being the party with not only guts but gore as well, the party came out with a new slogan: “Less gravy — more meat”. The manne in the bar, always keen for a braaivleis, are awaiting the next election campaign with interest. True colours * Talking […]

David Beresford THE Guardian has obtained documents which throw doubt on the explanations offered by the Labour Party parliamentary candidate for Exeter, John Lloyd, as to why he betrayed a fellow anti-apartheid activist to the South African hangman in the mid-1960s. A letter by Lloyd the year after the execution of John Harris appears to […]

Neil Bierbaum A COMMUNITY radio station in Pretoria is challenging a decision by the Independent Broadcasting Authority to grant it a shared frequency. Its court hearing against the IBA was delayed this week for the third time. Radio Visarend has been allocated a frequency to be shared with two other Afrikaans community radio stations, Radio […]

Mamphela Ramphele tells how Steve Biko’s death in detention coincided with a threat to her unborn baby, in the third extract from her autobiography IT is difficult to explain the series of coincidences which began to happen after my return to Lenyenye (a small Northern Transvaal village to which Ramphele had been banished), other than […]

Northern Province ‘witches’, banished from their communities, huddle together in a tiny village where they eke out a meagre and lonely existence, writes Fumane Diseko A dust road near Pietersburg leads to Helena, an arid and lonely village hidden behind thorn trees. Shacks made in a rush when people first settled have never been improved […]

Including social and economic rights in the Constitution could lead to an inflated welfare state or place South African citizens in the 20th century, writes Dennis Davis THE case for the inclusion of social and economic rights in the final Constitution has been long and intensely debated ever since it became clear that South Africa […]

Philippa Garson THE debacle around Wits University’s “great black hope”, deputy vice-chancellor William Makgoba, represents a crisis on several fronts for the institution, including a battle for the top job. Clearly, a concerted attempt to discredit the man tipped to be the university’s next vice-chancellor by a group of senior academics, who presented current vice- […]

A local entrepreneur is confident he will be able to break the CNA’s stranglehold over foreign magazine distribution. Neil Bierbaum reports South Africa could soon see a plethora of imported titles in corner cafes and petrol station shops if plans by former Intermag operations director Butch Courtney pay off. Imported titles have hitherto been available […]

Hundreds of IT contractors are leaving South Africa to pursue opportunities and larger salaries abroad. Leon Perlman reports A mini brain drain of information technology (IT) professionals in South Africa is being fuelled by a worldwide shortage of skilled contractors. Lured by comparatively large salaries, hundreds are thought to have left in the past year. […]

* Some seek fame, others have fame etcetera. Take Durban. It spends millions promoting itself. Mainly it talks about the sand and the sea and the Gunston 500 surfing contest. This week it was dazzled to find itself in its own right an international media event it hadn’t even bargained for. Television crews flew in […]

At the conclusion of last year’s freedom election, then-president-elect Nelson Mandela quoted the cry of American slaves from the last century: Free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty we are free at last. This week, at the conclusion of the next round of voting, we can paraphrase him: Normal at last, normal at […]

Old attitudes die hard in Ventersdorp, as Justin Pearce discovered VENTERSDORP looked as if it were hosting a foreign correspondents’ convention on Wednesday. The town of the AWB had a date with the new South Africa. It was surely a story to make soundbites throughout the world, and the media were there to tell it. […]

A war of words has been declared between Absa and Millenium magazine over an article defending former Tollgate chairman Julian Askin, reports Reg Rumney A number of puzzling questions are thrown up in the squabble between Absa Bank and Cape-based Millenium magazine over a series of articles it has been running on fugitive Julian Askin […]

Bridging the gap between black and white co-ops will define the role they will play in the future of the economy, reports Meshack Mabogoane The co-operative movement, long viewed as an ideal vehicle for blending elements of the market economy, democratic participation and collective ownership, may become a major factor in the drive for broadening […]

Karen Harverson South Africa exports more to the French island Reunion than it does to other developing markets such as Chile, Sri Lanka, New Zealand and Ghana. “We have a logistical advantage over European countries in the supply of goods to Reunion which is only 2 820km away from South Africa,” says South African Foreign […]

Rowan Callaghan The informal sector provides jobs for almost two million people, according to research by Unisa’s Bureau of Market Research (BMR). The BMR study found that last year almost 1,6-million, or around 15 percent, of the total South African work force was employed in the informal sector. This sector contributed an estimated R26-billion, or […]

Floundering or sinking, which ever way you view it the South African-Iranian oil deal is going nowhere for now, writes Karen Harverson Depending on whom you believe, South Africa’s deal to store and trade Iranian oil has fizzled out — or it has just been suspended pending the outcome of an environmental study on the […]

Cape Town Spurs are in line for an historic league and cup double, but the African Champions Cup finalists are one of the teams they have to get past Soccer: Lungile Madywabe CAUTIOUS, is how Cape Town Spurs coach Mich d’Avray still sounds after his team’s Bob Save Super Bowl semi- final win over Soweto […]

Gold mining no longer glitters all that brightly for the South African economy. Reg Rumney reports Working seven days a week will help gold mines survive in the medium term — but gold mining is in decline, says Amgold chairman Clem Sunter. Gold mining, once the mainstay and still a central pillar of the South […]

Collin Matjila, chairman of the executive committee of the Greater Johannesburg TMC, in The Mark Gevisser Profile Who? This is the man who, for the past year, has controlled a budget of R6-billion, bigger than that of four provinces and over half the size of Gauteng’s. This is the man who has had 35 000 […]

Fine Art: Hazel Friedman I first saw the work of Sandile Zulu (now showing at the Market) during a 1992 exhibition held by Wits University’s Fine Arts Department where Zulu was a student. At the time his burnt offerings struck me as extraordinarily beautiful, but anachronistic in the context of all those post-modern pastiches produced […]

The SABC has successfully completed nationwide coverage of the local elections, writes Hazel Friedman ‘What the hell is going on in the Northern Cape and Mpumalanga?” asks a senior South African Broadcasting Corporation television staff member, his voice thick with tension and fatigue. It’s like watching the finals of nine ping-pong matches as the television […]

The Weekly Mail (now the Mail & Guardian) first exposed the existence of the Caprivi 200 hit-squad in 1990, when it reported the group was trained at a secret training base called Hippo on the banks of the Cuando River in the Caprivi Strip. The base was not far from the Angolan border and was […]

Jan Taljaard EVEN before the ballots were counted this week, South African right-wingers knew they had reached the crossroads. The Freedom Front saw the local government elections as an opportunity not only to emerge as king of the right- wing heap, but also to make significant inroads into a disenchanted voters’ base that once belonged […]

There is only one route open to General Magnus Malan if he wants to avoid the trial which is ahead of him. He and his co-accused can ask the court in Durban for a stay of proceedings because they wish to take their case to the Amnesty Committee within the Truth and Reconciliation Commission when […]

Filmmaker Adam Louw has been spending his time in a mental home. HAZEL FRIEDMAN reports on an emotional exploration of insanity ‘Why have you brought me here?” The young man stares wildly at the white coats surrounding him. “God will punish you all, I know what His plans are for South Africa.” Tell us, implore […]

It was a joyous occasion in Soweto when the English cricketers played there, but some of them were not happy with their form Cricket: Jon Swift THERE is an assurance from all concerned that Soweto’s Elkah Oval is to become an integral part of our cricket, a fixed seasonal venue and the future site for […]

Elections provide the chill factor We should have more of these things. They seem to have a very high chill pill content. I’m talking of elections. We should schedule one or two of these as a matter of course. It has been pretty laid back, this election. Even the SAUK has, until the past few […]

Ernest Thusini used to be a religious leader. But it was the brutal murder of five of his children at KwaMakhutha on January 21 1987 that brought him into politics. “I think the attack motivated me to go into politics because I believed I had to do something to help enable these changes to take […]

Marion Edmunds A MASSIVE task of re-evaluation and restructuring lies ahead for town, city and rural councils, now that the elections have taken place in most parts of South Africa. While local government has been in a state of flux since the April elections last year, real change in priorities and service delivery can only […]

Justin Arenstein WHEN election authorities in Mpumalanga announced that they had lost the trucks transporting ballot papers to more than 50 polling stations in the former KwaNdebele, it sounded like one of the more amusing episodes of the local elections. But when the ballot papers had still not arrived 12 hours after polls were supposed […]