Staff Reporter

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 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 […]

The All Africa Games in Zimbabwe were plagued by disorganisation but it was still an occasion for Africa to celebrate ATHLETICS: Julian Drew THE cynics said they would never take place on time, and when they did, spent most of their time whining about poor organisation and anything else they could think of to denigrate […]

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 […]

Karen Harverson. More than 2 000 companies were liquidated in 1994 alone, resulting in thousands of employees not only losing their jobs but also losing out on unpaid salaries, accrued leave and various other benefits. When it comes to protecting the rights of employees of insolvent companies, South Africa’s laws lag far behind international norms. […]

Neil Bierbaum THE recent release of the All Media and Product Survey (Amps) shows that, with a few exceptions, magazines suffered a significant loss of black readership, according to Tony Banahan of Lindsay-Smithers FCB. Interpreting the Amps figures, Banahan says particularly hard hit were women’s magazines. Cosmopolitan (-4,9 percent), Femina (-13,6 ),Living & Loving (-19,3), […]

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 […]

Ann Eveleth Kipha Nyawosa doesn’t believe in revenge, a remarkable principle for someone as accustomed to burying family members as he has become in the past year. Between October 1994 and June 1995, Nyawosa has buried 14 family members following a spate of brutal attacks endemic to the townships and rural areas around Port “If […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

Karen Botha Age: Old enough to have backache. Appearance: Heidi meets Hercules. All apple cheeks and blonde curls on a muscle-packed frame. Occupation: Wife of rugby legend, now making a come- back as a golfer, Naas Botha. South African long-jump hopeful. Two roles that have called on that Herculean strength to remain cool in the […]

RUGBY: Jon Swift SUDDENLY, at a stroke if you like, the rugby season has taken a different slant, a different emphasis. Transvaal, the power province that the steely will and vast resources of Louis Luyt assembled and the deep insightful thinking of Kitch Christie honed to perfection in the 1993 season, have relinquished their hold […]

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 […]

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 […]

Meshack Mabogoane When the African Bank went through its first major scam involving forex irregularities in 1988, the Reserve Bank seconded Jack Theron, an experienced banker from Trust Bank, to take over from then-chief executive Moses Maubane. Theron’s brief was to salvage the mess, then hand the reigns back to a black chief executive. Ironically […]

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 […]

The Skweyiya Commission, which examined corruption and political destabilisation in the former Bophuthatswana homeland, should set an example for other provincial governments, argues Dr John Seiler BOPHUTHATSWANA’S only president, Lucas Mangope, has taken to the political hustings with the cynical, self-serving argument that only he, of all former homeland leaders, has been subjected to an […]

Itumeleng Mosala takes issue with last week’s article by Dr Mamphela Ramphele DR MAMPHELA Ramphele (Mail & Guardian September 8 to 14) makes several serious claims that need challenging. I am a member of the Azanian People’s Organisation; in fact, an immediate ex- president, but, contrary to the opportunistic claims of Ramphele, I was not […]

ANC MP Phillip Dexter used to lead health workers’ strikes. Now he is sharply critical of the conduct of nurses The strike action by nurses in the Gauteng area has thrown to the fore the issue of the public service in the new democratic dispensation. It is not the first such action. There have been […]

Meshack Mabogoane and Reg Rumney If any government aid is granted to the closed African Bank (AB) it will not come from the Reserve Bank. Pressure built up this week to throw the AB a lifeline, but Registrar of Banks Christo Wiese is adamant the Reserve Bank will only lend support to solvent institutions — […]

Marion Edmunds and Ann Eveleth The recently released hardline Inkatha Freedom Party constitution calls for a provincial army, exclusive provincial policing powers and the right to refuse intervention in the province by the South African National Defence Force. It also claims exclusive powers over all constitutional, legislative, judicial, and financial matters and paves the way […]

Four world-renowned musicians, playing together for the first time at Arts Alive, discussed the merits of jazz with MESHACK MABOGOANE GETTING four musicians from three continents together in a Braamfontein hotel and sounding them out on a range of views is like combining a classic jam session – – in which each player improvises on […]

Indications are that the RDP is more entangled in financial wrangles than in development and reconstruction, argues Nicoli Nattrass The Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) has two public faces. In its general, and more rhetorical manifestation, it refers to South Africa’s supposedly integrated developmental vision. More practically, however, it boils down to the activities of […]

Thami Mazwai of the Black Editors’ Forum in The Mark Gevisser Profile Last Saturday night at the Carlton Hotel, while a band trundled tonelessly through a rendition of Stand by Me in the function room next door, Thami Mazwai’s Black Editors’ Forum (BEF) gathered to contemplate its relationship to press freedom, to the white mainstream […]

Richard Calland THE consortium of management consultants hired by Parliament to investigate restructuring, at a cost of almost half a million rand, is racked by internal tensions, accusations against one partner of previous failures to deliver and the defection of a respected team member. The South African firm of Kenneth Mgqamqo & Associates joined forces […]

Karen Harveson Over the next two decades, three-quarters of world trade will take place in the emerging markets, of which South Africa is one. Speaking at a Bell, Dewar and Hall presentation on trade and business in South Africa last week, United States Minister Counsellor for Commercial Affairs Millard Arnold said the US, along with […]

Neil Bierbaum SUPPLIERS of satellite dishes and decoders are advising consumers to wait for an expected reduction in import duties before ordering the new technology — but if there is a rush, manufacturers may not be able to meet the demand. The current 77,5 percent duty on satellite receiving equipment is expected to come down […]