Staff Reporter

Amendments to the Income Tax Act cut back on the loopholes to which=20 firms have become accustomed. Karen Harverson reports A tax loophole, which effectively meant Inland Revenue made a loan to the= taxpaying public, has been stopped.=20 This was one of the 1995 amendments to the Income Tax Act, passed in=20 July and reviewed […]

Gaye Davis THE rumblings began almost as soon as the survey teams hit the=20 cobblestones in the Parliamentary precinct. It was, said Dr Mamphela Ramphele, director of Idasa=D5s Public Information= Centre (PIC), a historic opportunity for MPs and senators to prove they=20 were really as transparent and accessible to the electorate as they claimed= to […]

Reg Rumney South African textile exports last year surged by around 31 percent,=20 compared to calendar 1993, to R1,5-billion. Nonetheless, as the Textile Federation=D5s August 1995 Textile Watch=20 comments, textile export statistics are a microcosm of what is wrong with= South Africa=D5s foreign trade. Textile exports remain mostly commodity- based and, therefore, vulnerable to volatile […]

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 […]

SOCCER: Lungile Madywabe THE South African team, which assembles on Monday in preparation for=20 the Africa Nations Cup finals which take place in South Africa from=20 January 13 to February 3 next year, know that they have a momentous task=20 ahead of them. This week they were drawn in a group with Cameroon, Egypt and […]

Rehana Rossouw CAPE TOWN either has an Olympic bid which benefits the poor, or the=20 Games will not take place in the city in 2004, a coalition of organisations= has warned. Slamming the initiative as a =D2big business bid=D3, the Coalition for=20 Sustainable Cities (CSC), representing 35 trade union, political,=20 environmental and development organisations, this […]

THREE Members of Parliament have contacted the Mail & Guardian about=20 last week=D5s story on absenteeism in the National Assembly. The African National Congress=D5 David Dalling has pointed out he has been= absent because of major surgery to his foot. The failure of this surgery ha= prevented his return and forced him to have a […]

Gavin Du Venage THE Eastern Cape may lose another provincial minister after Health=20 Minister Dr Gertrude Thomas came under attack from within her own=20 party, the ANC, over the poor performance of her ministry. If she goes, Thomas will be the third Eastern Cape cabinet member to lose= her job since the establishment of the […]

Shaun de Waal AT the James Phillips Memorial Concert at Mega Music in Johannesburg=20 this weekend, you will be able to hear a wide variety of bands paying=20 tribute to the late songwriter and bandleader; you will also be able to=20 contribute to the Sunny Skies Trust =D1 raising money to cover medical bill= =D1 […]

THEATRE: David Le Page KARNAVAL, at the Johannesburg Civic, is a reminder that one of South=20 Africa=D5s great dramatic talents is hiding inside Evita Bezuidenhout. Twen= years old, it remains poignant and very funny. Though it was undoubtedly=20 more outrageous in its language, and politically provocative, in the=20 Seventies, the loss of those resonances serves […]

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 […]

Gaye Davis CLAUSES in the interim Constitution governing education are impeding the African National Congress’ ability to deliver and should be expunged from the new Constitution, says Blade Nzimande, chairperson of the National Assembly Portfolio Committee on Education. The collapse of mass-based organisation was also threatening transformation, he said in an interview this week. “You […]

An exhibition at Museum Africa reveals how South=20 African history as we know it was constructed through=20 text and images. RUTH SACK reports WAKE up, Thomas Baines, your time has come around=20 again. Or so a visit to the exhibition Frontiers — now=20 relocated from the Gertrude Posel Gallery to Museum=20 Africa in Newtown — […]

The Internet is exploding. Bruce Cohen goes surfing for=20 facts on the Net’s tidal wave of growth MIKE LAWRIE, manager of Uninet, the vast computer=20 network that links thousands of South African academics=20 and students to the global information highway,is=20 feeling the squeeze. Right now Uninet is shifting 100- million bytes of data=20 an hour […]

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 […]

FINE ART: Ian Tromp THE Sasol New Signatures Competition is open only to=20 artists who have not previously held a solo exhibition,=20 so the majority of those whose work is on exhibit at=20 the Pretoria Art Museum are students. Such exhibitions=20 are often a useful barometer of the directions in which=20 art is moving. Although […]

CINEMA: Stanley Peskin MIAMI Rhapsody is a quite amusing film about the=20 related themes of married life and adultery. Love is,=20 as Louis Armstrong informs us over the credit titles,=20 “just one of those things” and the self-indulgent=20 heroine Gwynn Marcus (Sarah Jessica Parker) comes to=20 the conclusion that love, hardly ever rhapsodic, is=20 like […]

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, […]

This week’s SADC summit saw quibbling among the region’s leaders, but a few strides were made nevertheless, reports Stefaans Brummer WHEN the Southern African Development Community heads of state and government postponed their lunch at Johannesburg’s World Trade Centre on Monday, observers suspected there was serious quibbling in the air. Two closed sessions of an […]

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 […]

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 […]

CRICKET: Jon Swift THERE is something vaguely intimidating about coming=20 face to face with a living legend, even one as openly=20 receptive to the advances of lesser mortals as cricket=20 great Sir Garfield Sobers. At 59, the hair is greying and the lines demarcating=20 the edges of the mouth more deeply embedded than in his=20 […]

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, […]

JAZZ: Meshack Mabogoane A MONTH after his appointment as co-director of the=20 State Theatre, the appearance of Hugh Masekela at=20 Kippie’s in downtown Johannesburg last week was a=20 fitting reminder that he is both the supreme embodiment=20 of a cultural stream that has been exiled from stately=20 consideration, and a musical establishment in his own=20 […]

The Constitutional Court is about to decide on the legality of banning porn, writes Justin Pearce Pornography will be in the dock next week when the Constitutional Court considers whether a section of the Indecent or Obscene Photographic Matter Act of 1967 should be scrapped in terms of the free speech provisions and other constitutional […]

The Education Minister, slated for the slow pace of change in education, promises to set the ball rolling, reports Gaye Davis UNDER fire for not driving the pace of change in education hard or fast enough, Education Minister Professor Sibusiso Bengu says he is now poised to prove to his critics that he can deliver. […]

The South African porn market is thriving, with=20 new and more daring titles every month. =20 Justin Pearce took a (very) close look The only magazine that’s explicitly aimed at gay men,=20 Adonis doesn’t waste its time with articles and gives=20 you 24 pages of naked men mostly in outdoor settings,=20 proving for once and […]

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 […]

Stefaans Brummer THE irony of their own attendance at Monday’s Southern African Development Community summit could not have been lost on Constand Viljoen and Pik Botha. A succession of regional leaders made sure they had no Both men sat attentively in the large but select World Trade Centre audience when three presidents, including Nelson Mandela, […]

The sale of a prime Telkom-owned property, apparently at a fire-sale price, has the telecommunications minister lambasting his officials, reports Stefaans Posts and Telecommunications Minister Pallo Jordan has questioned Telkom’s sale of a prestigious Cape Town Waterfront property, suggesting that the deal lost the state-owned company millions or rand. Documents in possession of the Mail […]

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 […]

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 […]