Staff Reporter

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 […]

* 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 […]

The cinema is considered by many, especially the French, who practically invented it, to be the key art form of the 20th century. Now a century old, its 100th birthday will be celebrated by a special presentation of films beginning at the Seven Arts in Norwood on Wednesday November 8. The season, organised by 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 […]

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 […]

Hazel Friedman IRMA STERN: A FEAST FOR THE EYE by Marion Arnold (Rembrandt van Rijn Art Foundation, R197,99) IN these earnest, multi-culturally correct times, it’s not merely fashionable to trash artist Irma Stern. It’s downright obligatory. She is variously called the female version of Tretchikoff, a mediore modernist whose paintings are but poor imitations of […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

This was a good week for justice in South Africa. It saw the arrest of top former military leaders for their alleged role in one of the most brutal of the KwaZulu- Natal massacres of the last decade, and the demotion of that province’s safety and security MEC, Celani Mtetwa, accused of involvement in gun-running. […]

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 […]

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 […]

Karen Harverson South Africa does not have the luxury of time to plan for the transformation of its economy. All players at national, sectoral, company and community level need to co-operate in a joint strategy to achieve this second miracle. “There is no alternative open to South Africa except to seek a meaningful social partnership. […]

Trade unionist Gwede Mantashe speaks to Karen Harverson about his appointment to the Samancor For the first time in South Africa’ s turbulent management-worker relationship, a trade unionist has been appointed to the board of directors of a major listed company. Ferro alloy producer Samancor has appointed 45- year old Gwede Mantashe, assistant general secretary […]

Cry, the Beloved Country is beautiful to the point of kitsch — but it doesn’t seem to have benefited from 50 years’ hindsight, writes JUSTIN PEARCE Our own dear Y-fronted South African flag appears at the bottom of the ethno-abstract poster for Cry, the Beloved Country. This may seem odd considering that the film is […]

Certain vehicles will be cut from the Mercedes Benz range, reports Karen Harverson Mercedes Benz of South Africa, in keeping with local motor industry sentiment to cut production of low volume models, will no longer manufacture all Mercedes Benz ranges but stick to the C-class model and limited production of the E-class. Production of the […]

International players have given coaching clinics in Soweto before, but English cricketers actually playing at the township’s stadium is far more Cricket: Jon Swift PERHAPS some of the real significance of an international team playing cricket in Soweto will not strike the England players quite as dramatically as it will those of us who proudly […]

Mail and Guardian reporter The Mail & Guardian has opened South Africa’s first recruitment service on the Internet. Called work@za, the service is housed at the World Wide Web site of the Electronic Mail & Guardian. It lists a variety of current jobs available in South Africa, and on-line users can apply for many of […]

The festival will host four guests who are major gay or lesbian filmmakers: * John Greyson is a Toronto-based videomaker who is widely regarded as being in the forefront of politically motivated, risk-taking gay film in North America. The director of the brilliant Zero Patience, which caused such a stir at last year’s festival, Greyson […]

Opera: Coenraad Visser WITH this revival of his 1991 production of Offenbach’s Les Contes d’Hoffmann (State Theatre), Neels Hansen does himself proud. This time round his direction is more detailed, and there is a stronger sense of energy that pervades the Olympia and Venetian scenes. He is no doubt helped by an enthusiastic (and splendid) […]

The ‘video virtual meeting’ has now come of age as a strategic business tool. Leon Perlman reports Cut-rate airfares, Voyager Miles and bargain hotel and car hire deals are set to face stiff competition from an unlikely source — the telephone line. With near-video quality images, video-conferencing over normal copper telephone lines using new high […]

The IBA’s latest strategy on radio frequencies severely restricts potential independent commercial stations, writes Neil Bierbaum ONLY five low-power frequencies are available for commercial stations in Gauteng and some of these may be allocated to the South African Broadcasting Corporation. This is only one severely limiting implication of the frequency spectrum plan published by the […]

Lynda Loxton Despite South Africa’s 3 000km coastline, few black South Africans are seafarers while few cargo ships bear the South African flag — but all this is about to change. Several initiatives are in hand not only to make young South Africans more aware of potential careers in shipping instead of commerce, agriculture or […]

Iscor’s Hans Smith discusses his dreams and aspirations for the organisation with Aspasia Hans Jurie Smith, managing director and soon to be chairman of Iscor, describes himself as ‘a bit of a dreamer’. He has a vision of Iscor becoming a large international player in the commodities business with the potential to grow even faster […]

Neil Bierbaum BY applying public service attitudes to its commercial radio stations, the South African Broadcasting Corporation could cause the demise of these stations. This is the opinion of former 5FM programme manager, Keith Lindsay. Lindsay is sueing the SABC for wrongful dismissal after his contract was terminated two months before it was due to […]

Fine Art: Hazel Friedman VIEWING Jason Crystal’s exhibition From Tokolosh to Lemonade (First Gallery, Parkhurst) is a bit like being taken on a magical mystery tour that begins in the Middle Ages and ends in the Garden of Earthly Delights via the New Age highway. Sounds like an acid trip, right? Except that Crystal doesn’t […]

Soccer: Lungile Madywabe WHATEVER Kaizer Chiefs coach Jeff Butler tells his charges before their game on Saturday against log leaders Cape Town Spurs at the Rand Stadium, he knows that Chiefs will have to win to keep alive their hopes of salvaging anything this year. However, the real drama will be 20 hours later in […]

A Chicagoan with decades’ experience is creating a new forum for local comedy. He spoke to Pat OF the innumerable legacies left by Barney Simon to South African theatre — his words, his work and the many talents he nurtured — surely the most unusual has to be an energetic, ebullient theatre- maker from Chicago […]

The Sunday Times’ policy of producing racially targeted ‘Extra’ editions has come under fire. Neil Bierbaum reports IS the country’s biggest-selling newspaper, the Sunday Times, living in the past? Gauteng Premier Tokyo Sexwale took aim at the paper’s separate racially-targeted editions last week, criticising the paper for continuing to “produce ‘Extra’ covers around their white […]

IN THE DOCK: Former Italian prime minister Silvio =20 Berlusconi, committed to trial in Milan on corruption =20 JAILED: Keith Moore, Sting’s former accountant, =20 sentenced to six years for stealing Stg 6-million from =20 the rock star=20 HONOURED: Cape Times editor Mogsien Williams named =20 Sowetan Journalist of the Year at a Press Freedom […]

Theatre: David Le Page Raiders of the Lost Count is a play play, so silly that one is astonished by the fact that one is watching what appear to be adults performing it and by the extent to which they have liberated child-like imaginations. It’s tremendously exhilarating watching actors having so much fun. It’s not […]

Janet Wilhelm=20 Age: Somewhere between angry young political firebrand =20 and boardroom fossil.=20 Also known as: Ex-Benny Alexander!=20 Appearance: Also in transition. Businesslike blue suits =20 with fewer lapses into ethnic West African dashikis and =20 Mao tunics.=20 Is that what they call dressing for success? He is =20 following the modern fashion trend of […]