Staff Reporter

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 […]

Athletics: Julian Drew THERE has in the past been considerable criticism of the way in which South Africa’s athletes have been prepared and selected for major championships. On Thursday a bold and positive plan was announced by the National Olympic Committee of South Africa (NOCSA) and Athletics South Africa (ASA) to prepare the athletics team […]

NONE of the violence and gang warfare I saw in my youth =20 in the Cape Flats prepared me for the carnage which =20 unfolded before my eyes in Thornton Road, Athlone, Cape =20 Town on a sunny Tuesday afternoon this week.=20 As I drove down Belgravia Road, Athlone, my eyes were =20 burning and […]

BLACK pride returned to Washington on Monday in the =20 shape of the Million Man March. The contrast between =20 the last time such civil rights numbers assembled and =20 now could not be greater. =20 Three decades ago the great black leader, Martin Luther =20 King, warned his people “not to thirst for freedom […]

Meshack Mabogoane Prospects for major commercial property developments in emerging markets, or black areas, could increase dramatically once black local government has been legimitised. A morass of technical hurdles, such as identifying owners of land and registration of title deeds, still remains to be cleared up. So, too, does the role of numerous community development […]

Theatre: David Le Page Watching the first minutes of The Choice (Civic Theatre) is like being steeped in a wash of pop- psychology epigrams. If Ray and Sal were actually people, they would have to memorise reams of material from women’s magazines and Readers’ Digest “10 Steps to a better Marriage/Relationship”-type articles to be able […]

Jan Taljaard and Annicia Reddiar=20 MOSES SITHOLE, prime suspect in the Gauteng serial =20 killings, was caught by police this week and is likely =20 to stand trial for the murder of up to 40 young women -=20 – but it had almost gone the other way.=20 In an almost uncanny replay of the incident […]

Questions are being asked about the viability of the =20 Cape Town Olympic Bid Company’s budget, presented =20 to Cabinet this week, reports Rehana Rossouw=20 THE green light for South Africa’s Olympic dream shone =20 faintly this week when Cabinet decided to support the =20 preparations for the 2004 Games, but warning lights =20 flashed […]

Janet Wilhelm Appearance: Historically disadvantaged patriarch with a penchant for dark designer suits and flash cars. Must be difficult to belong to a disadvantaged group? Not if you had the job of bantustan (sorry, homeland, sorry, independent state) leader. As Bophuthatswana president he consoled himself with lavish government spending — and evidence to the Skweyiya […]

Water crisis: It’s not about when or how much you can water your garden. It’s about how ongoing mismanagement and environmental damage have ruined resources Eddie Koch A front-page article in a national newspaper recently reported on how the Johannesburg city council was encouraging suburban residents to spy on neighbours who might be illegally watering […]

The Economist magazine has devoted a lengthy article to Anglo American’s staunch advocacy of conglomeration, which it points out is long out of fashion in business schools and American boardrooms. The Economist reports the reaction of Anglo chairman Julian Ogilvie Thomson to the 20 percent or so disparity between Anglo’s net asset value and the […]

Cinema: Stanley Peskin RUTH PRAWER JHABVALA’S sharp, engrossing screenplay for Merchant Ivory’s Jefferson in Paris provides a richly complex experience. The film begins in Pike County, Ohio, where the history of Thomas Jefferson (a very accomplished Nick Nolte), the third president of the United States (1801- 1809), is probed by a journalist. Interviewing a black […]

Karen Harverson George Sombonos — owner of the R100-million Chicken Licken, the third biggest fast food chain in South Africa — is unperturbed and mildly surprised by the uproar caused by the successful outcome of his court case against US hamburger chain McDonald’s. He admits to feeling “very relieved” at the verdict delivered last week […]

Eddie Koch South Africa’s “oil baron” Marino Chiavelli earned US$7,5-million a month for brokering a clandestine deal in 1980 that ensured thousands of barrels of oil a day was shipped into South Africa in contravention of the international embargo. This is one of the details contained in the new book Embargo: Apartheid’s Oil Secrets Revealed […]

Dance: Craig Hedderwick FOR just under a month, coinciding with Johannesburg’s Arts Alive festival, the Dance Factory in Newtown has showcased some of the most exciting contemporary choreography around in Dance ’95, which closed on a high note last weekend with a programme of festival highlights. The Soweto Dance Theatre’s Elevated Underground, choreographed by Collen […]

Reg Rumney The investment of around 3 000 debenture holders in the troubled Owen Wiggins Trust group is still at risk. For the first time since March 9 the curators of Owen Wiggins, whose troubles bear similarities to the Masterbond saga, have formally contacted investors. The curators, in a circular dated September 29, have poured […]

Ann Eveleth Only the wind stirred in Ebu-hleni when Rogers Ngcobo took the podium last Sunday. Tens of thousands of white-robed Nazarites, who had gathered in the tree-cloaked shantytown to mourn the death of their spiritual leader Bishop Amos Shembe, listened in stunned silence to his message. Ngcobo, a local bottle-store owner and non-Nazarite, told […]

Just outside Johannesburg last weekend, a group of South Africans met with a group of Cubans. It was a non-governmental meeting — civil society, not happy to leave matters to governments, working out the potential for cooperation between the two countries. It was also a rare meeting of international solidarity where South Africans were not […]

Karen Harverson Real estate company Seeff plans to launch its own bank within two years based on its latest venture, launched in Gauteng this week, to offer home loans through the company. With Boland Bank as its partner and financial backer, Seeff offers a one-stop operation where customers can buy and sell property, register property, […]

Cinema: Justin Pearce MOST gangster movies these days have a rap soundtrack. Little Odessa has Russian chorales. And it’s these ponderous, bass-heavy anthems which set the tone for the film: it’s turgid. Locating itself in the Russian Jewish neighbourhood of Brighton Beach in New York, Little Odessa suffers from a malaise not uncommon in films […]

Mighty McDonald’s — with some 16 000 restaurants in 84 countries — has been outwitted by a crafty South African who this week won a court battle for the right to use one of the world’s best-known brand names. At the end of the first stage of the hamburger war, there’s ketchup on the floor […]

The appointment of a national attorney-general could avoid a recurrence of the ‘McNally issue’, argue Dr Jeremy Sarkin and Suzie Cowen THE criminal justice system is in crisis. It lacks legitimacy and is seen as ineffective. It is in this context that the danger of giving attorneys-general independence, without creating mechanisms for effective accountability, has […]

Anti-conglomerate measures are still possible, argues Reg Rumney Anglo American executive director Michael Spicer has arguably made it harder for Trade and Industry Minister Trevor Manuel to avoid taking steps against South Africa’s big conglomerates. Spicer, who has gone to ground now, perhaps fearing further personalisation of the conglomerate debate, went on the offensive after […]

Neil Bierbaum Delays are expected in the issuing of new commercial radio licences in order to ensure the sale of South African Broadcasting Corporation stations. The Independent Broadcasting Authority has been accused of intending to delay the licensing of new commercial radio stations in order to ensure the sale of the SABC radio stations at […]

The French flair of Thierry Lacroix for Natal and the poise of Joel Stransky for Western Province will be vital in a tense Currie Cup final, but the two pairs of locks will also be key factors RUGBY: Jon Swift THERE are some haunting shadows in the importance placed on this weekend’s Currie Cup final […]

Rehana Rossouw Human rights groups are furious at delays of more than two years in bringing child-abusers to justice. A former principal of a children’s home in Cape Town, Mike Viveros, has had his trial on charges of sexually abusing seven children postponed 15 times since he first appeared in court in October 1993. Welfare […]

To get doctors to use their medicines, companies give them free drugs, which the doctors sell at huge profits. Hazel Friedman reports on the practices which have made our drugs the most expensive in the world MANY of South Africa’s 6 000 dispensing doctors receive free bonus drugs which they sell to consumers at high […]

Gaye Davis DEPUTY President FW de Klerk chaired a routine meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Security and Intelligence “as usual” on Thursday as both African National Congress and National Party government sources said ANC attacks on him were simply “electioneering” and discounted any threat to the Government of National Unity. An unfounded rumour that […]

The Cabinet and Mangosuthu Buthelezi are at loggerheads again over the controversial Ingonyama Trust Act, writes Gaye Davis LEAKED documents from a Cabinet committee meeting show that government moves to spike a KwaZulu-Natal legislature bid to re-enact the controversial Ingonyama Trust Act have sparked a major showdown. In a strongly worded statement tabled at this […]

Sheena Duncan, former president of the Black Sash, responds to allegations in a new book that her organisation compromised liberal principles Jill Wentzel says in her Author’s Note that her book The Liberal Slideaway is a “subjective account of life in the liberal community during the last 14 years.” Of course, it has to be […]

Fine Art: Ruth Sack PAVED with good intentions, the Right to Hope project was perhaps destined to stumble into predictable pitfalls, especially given its ambition and its hopes. Consisting of three separate exhibitions in Johannesburg, one of which will tour the world for two years, and a multifarious educational component, it was set up to […]