Staff Reporter

Marion Edmunds RDP roleplayers in government met this week — without Jay Naidoo — to grapple with the realisation that the RDP is too much “pie-in-the-sky” and needs to be grounded in practical projects that promote economic Senior RDP officials, government leaders and technocrats met for three days in Cape Town to discuss ways to […]

One of the more refreshing aspects of the new South Africa is the sight of government bureaucrats being called to account. Johnny de Lange’s justice committee this week gave a particularly vivid demonstration of the contribution parliamentary oversight can make to good governance with its hearings on the offices of the The highlight of the […]

Chief Rabbi Cyril Harris in The Mark Gevisser Profile This week, during Rosh Hashanah, two strange things happened to Rabbi Cyril Harris. They are not unconnected. On Tuesday morning at 6am he received a personal call from Nelson Mandela, wishing the Jewish People a Happy New Year (his awestruck maid had to explain to the […]

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 […]

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 […]

Neil Bierbaum Independent Newspapers (formerly Argus) is struggling with its attempts to move from the afternoon to the morning market. And in an attempt to boost Business Report, the company is to introduce the four-page international weekly edition of the Wall Street Journal on Mondays. Independent Newspaper’s own survey of Business Report, conducted in the […]

Rehana Rossouw Pope John Paul II’s historic service at Gosforth Park last Sunday is in danger of going down in the history books as a reverse of the miracle of the loaves and Jubilant officials in the Catholic Church claimed the event was one of the biggest public gatherings ever in South Africa, estimating that […]

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 […]

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 […]

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, […]

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 […]

THEATRE: David Le Page The Night Larry Kramer Kissed Me represents a medium familiar to South Africans, and one that is oft- reviled: it is protest theatre. The issue is not race, it is gay rights, but the anger and rhetoric are familiar. Frequently the stage becomes a podium, and Robert Finlayson, the sole performer, […]

Ricardo Dunn A South African Police Service diversity programme — aimed at sensitising police recruits to issues of race, gender and sexual orientation — has been put on ice. The pilot programme, initiated by the SAPS career- planning department, was to have started this year. Malene De Beer, a trainer at Technikon SA, which is […]

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 […]

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 […]

Rehana Rossouw DISTRICT SIX could be the first case to be heard by the Land Claims Court, but the issue it will address — hotly disputed by some former residents — is whether to block individual restitution claims in parts of the The area is internationally regarded as a symbol of the Group Areas Act […]

WHEN Anglo American chairman Gavin Relly and African National Congress publicity chief Thabo Mbeki sat down alongside each other in the Zambian bush last week, shared tobacco pouches and puffed merry smoke rings past each other, there was good reason to wonder what, if anything, was being cooked up. For sure, an important political process […]

Neil Bierbaum The Independent Broadcasting Authority is making another attempt to regulate satellite broadcasting. Such control may be exercised by imposing restrictions on advertisers and other suppliers to the industry. But prospective local satellite broadcasters believe that these regulatory attempts may weaken their hand as they try to compete with international players. The IBA intends […]

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 […]

The diamond-rich Lundas are the last battlefield in Angola’s civil war. Philip van Niekerk reports on a deal that is brokered to share the diamonds among the warring parties AFTER sundown the town of Saurimo in northern Angola is alive with gunfire — the rattle of AK47s and pistol shots. A nonchalant United Nations peacekeeper […]

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 […]

Critically acclaimed, Robyn Orlin remains marginalised by the dance world. She spoke to HAZEL FRIEDMAN THERE’S an ancient Greek saying that the soul of a nation is ultimately judged by the way it treats its artists. If so, South Africa has much to answer for in its treatment of Robyn Orlin. Think of contemporary dance […]

Louise Flanagan A group of former Ciskei soldiers fighting for reinstatement four years after they were fired for blowing the whistle on illegal military activities may finally be compensated. “The indications are that it is a matter of working out quantum,” a spokesman for the ministry of defence, Dr Das Herbst, said this week. The […]

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 […]

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, […]

FINE ART: Ruth Sack THERE is a feeling of danger coursing through the exhibition Brown and Green, at the Pretoria Art Museum. Exploring, as most of us now do, issues of identity, history and culture, what is unexpected is the strength of its darkly transgressive energy. The transgressional nature of this exhibition has everything to […]

CRICKET: Jon Swift IT WAS, as Ali Bacher commented before the announcement of the squad for the short tour of Zimbabwe next month, “an interesting side”. It was made even more intriguing by the rationale offered by convenor of selectors Peter The squad which will travel north between October 10-23 is, Pollock maintains, “an experiment […]

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. […]

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 […]

More than 100 rhino horns which were to be used to trap smugglers have gone missing, reports Ann Eveleth MORE than 100 rhino horns purchased by a controversial group of British special forces officers from the Natal Parks Board in the late 1980s, supposedly for a “sting” operation to trap smugglers, have gone missing and […]

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 […]

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 […]