Staff Reporter

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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. […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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, […]

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 […]

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 […]

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. […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

Rehana Rossouw MINERAL and Energy Affairs Minister Pik Botha this week blamed the Strategic Fuel Fund (SSF) for allowing a “rust bucket” tanker — which spilled 66.5 tons of crude oil into the sensitive Saldanha Bay area — to slip through safety controls. The spill, some of which seeped into the Langebaan lagoon reserve, fulfilled […]

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 […]

Fruit and vegetables, masks and cloth are just some of the props called into play at the African Puppet Theatre Festival. DAVID LE PAGE reports LUNCH-HOUR traffic crowds the streets in Rosebank, Johannesburg. An unusually hot sun beats down. At the junction of Oxford and Glenhove roads, two photographers and several traffic officers wait. The […]

FINE ART: Hazel Friedman USING mild terminology to describe Moshekwa Langa’s debut solo exhibition at the Market’s Rembrandt van Rijn Gallery would be tantamount to defining a tidal wave as a ripple. Here’s this newcomer from KwaNdebele, barely out of his high- school blazer — he recently matriculated from the Waldorf School — who is […]

Craig Hedderwick ARTS ALIVE this year has a particularly lively dance component — a 24-day celebration and exploration of the diverse styles of South African dance, to be held at the Dance Factory in Newtown. More than 300 performers will present a feast of contemporary, African and jazz dance. The entire spectrum of dance culture […]

Hazel Friedman WINIFRED BROUCKAERT still carries the scars and bruises of a brutal attack more than six months ago. But more agonising than her injuries is the knowledge that the man who allegedly robbed and stabbed her in the face — leaving her partially blind and close to death — is a police officer still […]

M&G Reporter ONLY three of the country’s nine premiers passed the Mail & Guardian’s second Government Efficiency Test. The newspaper investigated whether the premiers care enough about ordinary citizens to answer their letters. After six weeks, responses to a citizen’s letter had been received only from Gauteng’s Tokyo Sexwale, the Northern Cape’s Manne Dipico and […]

‘As German chancellor I do not have any intention of interfering in the internal affairs of this country,” said Helmut Kohl in Johannesburg this week. On the first visit to South Africa by a German chancellor, Kohl was at pains to avoid political controversy, concentrating on trade and economic co-operation between the two countries. But, […]

Turfloop University closed early this week amid student strife. Philippa Garson asks what has gone wrong WHEN Njabulo Ndebele took up his position as vice-chancellor of the University of the North over two years ago, he was glowing with optimism about the institution’s future, believing not only in its “tremendous potential”, but wanting “to be […]

Meshack Mabogoane reports on the political and racial issues that have arisen as the African Bank closes its doors The closure of the African Bank (AB), pioneering black financial institution, has sparked off racial emotions, political heat and personal anguish. The AB has been more than just a business venture; its symbolic value — reflected […]

Philippa Garson ROSEMARY MANGOPE, daughter-in-law of former Bophuthatswana president Lucas Mangope, still reaps the benefits of her former job as executive director of the Mabana Cultural Centre in Mmabatho, even though she left the centre when she fled the homeland 18 months ago. After the homeland uprising, which toppled her father-in-law, she was suspended from […]