Staff Reporter

Karen Harverson The power of advertising on television is uncontested but so far only big business can afford the medium. The South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) is now offering small and medium enterprises the opportunity to buy airtime at reduced rates for six “We believe that the television exposure will boost their businesses sufficiently to […]

Meshack Mabogoane The National African Federated Chambers of Commerce (Nafcoc), the main black business organisation, which formed the African Bank and has been its main supporter, has spoken out on the bank’s difficulties. Nafcoc president Joe Hlongwane this week announced his organisation, whose members hold 35,3 percent of Afbank’s equity, is determined to get involved […]

CRICKET: Jon Swift CRICKET is big business. You only have to weigh the R5- million Standard Bank are going to pour into the one- day game over the five years from the start of the 1996-97 season to gauge that. The massive sponsorship will back the national team in all one-day internationals in this country […]

Dub poet Linton Kwesi Johnson is back — this time with his band in tow. He spoke to ITUMELENG OA MAHABANE ‘IT feels good to be back,” Linton Kwesi Johnson says. He is not wearing his trademark hat. He doesn’t always wear the hat, he protests: “I am wearing a cap now.” The cap is […]

IT seems that on the question of transparency some MPs want to have their cake and eat it. They claim to be transparent, but want to dictate the terms. The National Party and IFP are opposing a full financial disclosure code for parliamentarians. The ANC and other parties have given notice they intend fighting the […]

Trevor Steele Taylor A FILM by the master of the “transcendental style”, Yasujiro Ozu, is one of the principal attractions of the Japanese Film Festival, at Johannesburg’s Rosebank Equinox Flower (1958), Ozu’s first colour film, is an examination of the stringent codes of morality that exist in Japanese society. A corporate businessman finds himself torn […]

Reg Rumney The shape of new competition policy is becoming clearer. Trade & Industry Minister Trevor Manuel in a speech last week revealed some of the proposals soon to be circulated in a draft Bill. Among the main objectives, said Manuel, were that: * The linkages between firms, be they through vertical integration, horizontal collusion […]

Lynda Loxton speaks to Plessey chief executive Dr John Temple about South African opportunities in the Far The Far East is potentially the most exciting market for South African industries — provided they are competitive and on the ball, Plessey Corporation chief executive Dr John Temple believes. Interviewed in the run-up to Plessey’s listing on […]

After a year away from the game, Jeff Butler has returned to coach Kaizer Chiefs SOCCER: Lungile Madywabe WITH eight weeks to go before the end of the season, the deadline for the registration of players in NSL teams has come and gone. Kaizer Chiefs were reported to be interested in the services of Ernest […]

Progress and frustration characterised the final days of the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, writes Colleen Lowe Morna Across the hallway from where Islamic delegations were registering reservations to the Beijing Platform for Action, a group of veiled Yemeni women were explaining that Islam in its truest sense is gender neutral. Upstairs, meanwhile, […]

Justin Pearce Two scions of CCV-TV’s marketing department and one South African Broadcasting Corporation old-guarder are to head the SABC’s revised three-channel television line-up, which will take effect in February next year. Molefe Mokgatle will head Channel 1, Taninga Msimango will become acting head of Channel 2, and Louis Raubenheimer is to head Channel 3. […]

Marion Edmunds CONSULTANTS Eugene Nyati and Ntsoaki Mohapi have made the Mpumalanga government look stupid — not only by doing its work faster and better, but also by showing up the provincial government’s carelessness with taxpayers’ money. This week, as the Nyati scandal in Mpumalanga came to a head, the auditor-general’s office decided to release […]

Stephanie Dippenaar NATIONAL Party cabinet ministers Pik Botha and Dawie de Villiers appear to be on a collision course over strip mining in the Northern Province’s environmentally sensitive Madimbo corridor. While the Department of Mineral and Energy Affairs, for which Botha is the responsible minister, issued a prospecting permit to a diamond-mining company in May, […]

Paul Stober Game reserves in remote areas under the control of the KwaZulu Department of Nature Conservation (KDNC) are being used to train members of the Inkatha Freedom Party’s self-protection units (SPUs), according to a report by the Network of Independent Monitors (NIM). The Durban-based violence monitoring organisation has alleged the Port Durnford forest reserve […]

Justin Pearce The voices of the Morning Stars echo up the stairs of the fluorescent-lit warehouse in Market Street. Dressed in medical orderlies’ white coats with “MS” embroidered on the breast pocket, the Morning Stars enter in single file, and women from the audience jump up from their chairs to tag along behind the procession. […]

CINEMA: Jonathan Romney SINCE his creation in 1977, the monolithic future lawman Judge Dredd has been the mainstay of the weekly British comic 2000 AD — and if ever a title was approaching its sell-by date, it’s that one. 2000 AD already sounds as quaint and olde-worlde a title as George Orwell’s 1984 did by […]

Louise Flanagan THE South African National Defence Force (SANDF) has admitted destroying weapons used in the Umtata raid two years ago, in what the victim’s families have called an attempt to conceal vital evidence. Five youths aged 12 to 17, died when troops of the old South African Defence Force (SADF) attacked the Umtata home […]

Two new magazines — based on overseas products –are soon to be launched, Itumeleng oa Mahabane reports on their plans THE magazine industry has not only experienced a massive growth in pornography titles in the last few years, but has seen publishers revamping existing products, buying back old titles, introducing new titles or launching local […]

A Cabinet decision to keep a toxic-waste investigation in-house has made green organisations see red, writes Eddie Koch A COALITION of green organisations plans to take President Nelson Mandela to court because of his Cabinet’s decision to overturn Parliament’s call for an independent inquiry into recent toxic-waste scandals. The Environmental Justice Networking Forum (EJNF), made […]

Eugene Nyati, political and financial consultant, in The Mark Gevisser Profile Here’s what Eugene Nyati had to say on Newsline following the April 1994 elections: “No amount of foreign aid can be a substitute for the internal sacrifices that we ourselves have got to make in order to get South Africa to work. We have […]

DNA forensics is used widely in South Africa, but a recent supreme court case in Cape Town exposed serious flaws in its application, reports Rehana Rossouw There are probably millions of people throughout the world who by now have heard of “the bloody glove” and its alleged proof of American sports superstar OJ Simpson’s involvement […]

Ann Eveleth Beleaguered KwaZulu-Natal Attorney-General Tim McNally met with African National Congress provincial leaders this week after calls by the party for his resignation. A joint statement released after the meeting on Wednesday between McNally and the ANC delegation, led by ANC provincial leader Jacob Zuma, said the ANC had expressed its concerns over the […]

Kwazulu-Natal attorney-general Tim McNally responds to criticism that he failed to prosecute senior IFP members for alleged hit squad activities THE full page report in the Mail & Guardian (August 4 to 10) attacking my integrity is a patchwork of falsehoods which did me great harm. It seems to me that the report has since […]

Mining company JCI is moving into Africa in a big way, reports Karen Harverson Unbundled mining company JCI Limited is vigorously expanding throughout Africa in the search for mineral Business development general manager Peter McKenna says most of JCI’s projects in Africa are still in the early development stages, but if successful, he expects gold […]

Neil Bierbaum AN independent advertising “sales house” has been launched to facilitate the buying of advertising airtime on television in the new multichannel Oracle Airtime Sales Limited (Oracle) will represent those channels in the MultiChoice bouquet available off PanAmSat4 (Pas4) which will take advertising. It is not yet clear which channels will take advertising, although […]

THEATRE: David Le Page IN a world where dizzying entertainment media are evolving towards the even more dazzling prospects of on-line virtual reality, it’s tempting to pity the puppeteer. No matter what his or her skill, how, one is forced to wonder, could puppetry compete with the spectacle of such technological visions? The answer, in […]

Central government relies on press clippings for intelligence. ANC regional leadership is in a shambles. The IFP is torn by internal disputes. Eddie Koch reports with Paul Stober and Marion Edmonds It is a drizzling Wednesday night on Durban’s beachfront and there is a machine at the amusement park called The Octopus, which uses a […]

Foreign investors want growth, not deregulation, argues ANC MP Rob Davies THE announcement of the appointment of a Cabinet “super-committee” to co-ordinate government strategy to promote economic growth has provoked a good deal of media comment. Some have seen the establishment of this committee as an implicit acknowledgment by the Government of National Unity of […]

Despite being at the end of a hard season, Maria Mutola will be going for a record at the opening of the new athletics stadium in Johannesburg ATHLETICS: Julian Drew WHILE most of the athletes attending the two-day meeting to inaugurate Johannesburg’s new R97-million athletics stadium this weekend are at the tail- end of a […]

A striking aspect of debate on matters of public interest in South Africa nowadays is the racial sub- text. Developers produce a scheme for the transformation of Johannesburg’s Zoo Lake. The issues are environmental. The sub-text is black business empowerment. Eugene Nyati is accused of creaming off public funds. The issue is financial accountability. Nyati […]

Home of the avant-garde or just a place to work? IAN TROMP looks at the first four years of the Speedy Bag ‘BAG Factory = Petting Zoo.” Thus reads a handwritten addition to an article in printer Mark Attwood’s file of clippings about artists based at the Fordsburg Artists’ Studios; the article, titled “State of […]

DANCE: Stanley Peskin PACT Dance Company’s Horizons is essentially South African in its landscape, in its use of choreographers and in its subject-matter. In Candice Johnstone’s Link, her use of six dancers as man-apes does not touch a sensitive chord. I was more aware of devolution than evolution in the ballet’s structure: perhaps this was […]