Staff Reporter

Lack of funding is behind last week=D5s resignations at Pact, reports Barba= THE arts community cheered in May when the Minister of Arts and=20 Culture saved the Market Theatre with a R3-million grant. On Friday last=20 week, Pact=D5s chairman and chief executive officer resigned, and five head= of department announced they would follow. The events […]

A former national serviceman has claimed that SADF involvement in illicit= ivory smuggling continued well into the 1980s, writes Ann Eveleth A JUDICIAL commission of inquiry heard claims this week that the old=20 South African Defence Force (SADF) was involved in ivory smuggling on=20 behalf of Angola=D5s Unita rebels until at least 1987. Testimony by […]

Car sales surge August new car sales, benefiting from renewed demand by the car rental=20 sector and recently introduced competitively priced small cars, rose to 20= 969 units. This is 24,8 percent up on the 16 805 units sold during the same= month last year. Sales of new light commercial vehicles, bakkies and=20 minibuses rose […]

The whites of the old Rhodesia used to take particular pride in the heroic= saga of the Shangane river patrol =D1 a police detachment which was=20 surrounded and massacred by the Matabele impis of Lobengula, singing=20 God Save the Queen as they died.=20 Some years ago, a historian created a furious controversy when he=20 suggested […]

Simmering tensions over land rights have boiled over after a dispute about= the burial of a teenager, reports Eddie Koch There is a war of the graves taking place in the Badplaas district that=20 shows, in a strange way, how the everyday lives of farmers and their labour= tenants are being shaped by a silent […]

Marion Edmunds Despairing of the difficult conditions under which they work, a number of= parliamentary officials are seeking relief from the long, hard days in song= More than a hundred parliamentary officials have formed a choir, and have= already had two practices.=20 The chairperson of the new choir, Hansard official Marina Griebenow, said= she had […]

CRICKET: Jon Swift WITH the wraps off the England tour party, the immediate reaction is to=20 contemplate a summer of speed. Allan Donald and Fanie de Villiers,=20 maybe even Brett Schultz, spearheading the South Africans. Devon=20 Malcolm, Darren Gough and Dominic Cork at the sharp end of England=D5s=20 six-man seam attack. Perhaps though this is […]

Karen Harverson speaks to Transport Minister Mac Maharaj on the links to=20 sub-Saharan continent=20 The South African government has proposed to the Southern African=20 Development Community (SADC) that the trunk roads leading into other=20 sub-Saharan countries be upgraded. =D2It would be financed by the imposition of a cross-border tariff which=20 would be used to rehabilitate […]

Aspasia Karras talks to Dr Danisa Baloyi about the challenges facing the=20 chairwoman of the Gauteng Tender Board Dr Danisa Baloyi=D5s appointment as chairwoman of the Gauteng Tender=20 Board could be seen as the culmination of an active mobilising presence in= the black business community, where she has been central in the formation= of such […]

Part museum, part holiday resort, Lesedi Cultural Village offers a =D4Real= African Experience=D5. JUSTIN PEARCE asks: What=D5s wrong with=20 THE American tourists are in traditional dress: golf shirts and polyester= slacks. Looking quietly excited and a touch apprehensive, they meet Xolani= Dludla, their guide, at the reception area of Lesedi Cultural Village and= follow him […]

The Azanian Students=D5 Movement is misusing Steve Biko=D5s name for its= own sectarian interests, argues Mamphela Ramphele THE tensions around the Azanian Students Movement=D5s (Azasm)=20 campaign to have white teachers in schools previously set aside for black= people replaced by unemployed black teachers, in the name of black=20 solidarity, is a chilling reminder of the […]

Humphrey Tyler THERE is just a hint of appealing eccentricity about Funky=D5s restaurant i= the new Bat Centre at the side of the harbour in Durban. This is not just= because the waiters wear funny waistcoats. Maybe it=D5s because the buildin= is not quite finished. There are no balustrades on the steps you climb to […]

An inability to communicate their grievances lies behind the nurses=D5 stri= reports Pat Sidley Florence Nightingale died at Baragwanath Hospital this week, after a long= struggle against apartheid medicine and wages, and a terminal dose of=20 broken promises. A striking nurse shovelled soil onto the coffin when she told a radio=20 interviewer that Nightingale =D2had […]

A =D4Save the Cape=D5 campaign is being instituted to defuse increasing ra= tension in the Western Cape, reports Rehana Rossouw Racial tension could explode in the Cape if nothing is done to reduce=20 antagonism between coloureds and Africans, religious leaders and=20 politicians warned this week. Rallying behind a call to =D2Save the Cape=D3, the Anglican […]

ANC MP Ela Gandhi argues that the state’s social assistance schemes are discriminatory, and should be extended to all Among the many pieces of apartheid legislation in our country there is one which has major implications for the Government of National Unity — the Social Assistance Bill and its regulations. In terms of this Bill, […]

Justin Pearce While the South African music industry sings the=20 praises of the Independent Broadcasting Authority over=20 the local-content provisions in this week’s report, the=20 film industry is wondering whether the report will make=20 any difference at all to the amount of local=20 independently produced material seen on television. Some players have welcomed the IBA’s […]

With a few more good performances, Claire Nitch can=20 attain her goal of a top eight ranking SQUASH: Mark Lamport-Stokes REALISM would rank high among the many qualities=20 possessed by South Africa’s number one women’s squash=20 player Claire Nitch. The 23-year-old from Gauteng, while not sacrificing a=20 burning ambition to be the very best she […]

Good leaders will do anything to maintain morale, which is the only apparent explanation for President Nelson Mandela’s enthusiastic assessment of this week’s Southern African Development Community (SADC) summit. It must be conceded that they did approve the Sappigmou (the Southern African Power Pool Inter-Governmental Memorandum of Understanding, for those who do not keep up […]

The Independent Broadcasting Authority report released this week is an important step towards a healthy and open broadcasting system. The juggernaut SABC is to be reduced to a manageable size to allow space for other broadcasters. Local content regulations will stimulate the television production and music industries without being unachievable. Cross-media ownership limitations should help […]

Karen Harverson Local coal producers will be vying to clinch the=20 remaining coal contracts for Eskom’s R10-billion Majuba=20 power station which, when completed, will consume some=20 13-million tons of coal a year. =20 The power station, which has a design capacity of 40=20 036 megawatts, will entail the construction of six=20 sets, each consisting of […]

Philippa Garson THE proposed closure of the central unit of Wits University’s Academic Development Programme — which offers support to educationally disadvantaged students — has met with dismay in some student and staff circles and raised questions about the direction being taken by the university on its academic development The decision to close down the […]

The only possible threat South African banks face is=20 foreign competition.=20 Reg Rumney reports Foreign competition is the biggest threat to the=20 margins of the banking industry — but foreign banks=20 are unlikely to want to upset the domestic applecart. Alan McConnochie of broker Ed Hern Rudolph, writing in=20 accountancy firm KPMG’s 1995 Banking Survey, […]

Ann Eveleth The pressure is on KwaZulu-Natal Attorney General Tim McNally after a Durban Supreme Court judge this week ordered investigations into senior Inkatha Freedom Party and KwaZulu Police officials. Judge Nick van der Reyden said the State had failed to disprove allegations by hit-squad accused Romeo Mbambo, Gcina Mkhize and Israel Hlongwane that they […]

An official probe into ivory and rhino horn smuggling has pointed a finger at the South African Defence Force, reports Ann Eveleth The South African Defence Force (SADF) used funds from poached ivory to recover some of the costs of supplying Unita Forces with provisions during South Africa’s secret war with Angola. South African taxpayers […]

The South African Citizenship Bill is an inadequate piece of legislation which requires attention, writes the Black Sash’s Sheena Duncan When Mr M, a South African citizen born in the Eastern Transvaal, was deported to Mozambique as an illegal alien for the second time, he approached the Black Sash Advice Office in Pretoria for assistance. […]

Eddie Koch The Department of Environment Affairs is being pressed by the Australian government to help weaken a proposed international ban on shipments of hazardous materials from industrialised to non-industrialised countries. The department has already been rocked by news that its consultants have allowed consignments of hazardous waste into the country, despite an official prohibition […]

CINEMA: Justin Pearce KEN LOACH’S Raining Stones is the cinematic equivalent=20 of protest theatre — only without the protest. After a=20 decade and a half of Tory government, working-class=20 council housing estates in the north of England are not=20 happy places, and Raining Stones is an account of the=20 misery created by unemployment, a broken-down […]

NO national commercial licences on FM. A number of=20 private radio stations will be licensed at a regional,=20 provincial and local level on both FM and MW. According=20 to an IBA official these could be licensed “within nine=20 Regional windows should also be provided for on public=20 service radio stations (duration unspecified). Several =20 radio […]

Short-term insurers have performed well this year so=20 far, despite crime and surging claims, reports Karen=20 Short-term insurance companies have reported surging=20 profits for the first half of 1995 but this doesn’t=20 mean premiums will be lowered, or even stabilised. For the six months ending June 1995, net income=20 reported by SA Eagle was R116-million, […]

Members of Parliament paid fines of R22 500 for absenteeism last year. And, according to the register, which is known to be inaccurate, a number of MPs may pay up this year as well. IFP MP Dr DR Madide was away for 37 days between February and June this year, and the ANC’s chief whip […]

Now in their seventh year, Not the Midnight Mass’=20 slightly sleazy edge is still razor-sharp, writes HAZEL=20 WHAT can you say about a troupe of actors-turned- singers who transformed an unemployment pit-stop and=20 after-hours slot between tits’n’bum time into an=20 institution? It’s pretty much been said before: the=20 eulogies to their Addams Family antics, their […]

Athletics fans can look forward to seeing one of the=20 greatest milers of all time when Noureddine Morceli=20 takes part in the opening of the new athletics=20 stadium in Johannesburg ATHLETICS: Julian Drew GROWING up in a country which was soccer crazy and had=20 little tradition in athletics it would have been hard=20 for Algeria’s […]