The slow pace of change at the Department of Foreign=20 Affairs has prompted Zola Skweyiya to take action,=20 writes Rehana Rossouw MINISTER of Public Service and Administration Dr Zola=20 Skweyiya this week stepped in to overhaul the=20 Department of Foreign Affairs, impatient at the pace of=20 A ministry source said Skweyiya, who met Foreign=20 Affairs […]
CINEMA: Justin Pearce THE Brady Bunch Movie plays in with a tracking shot down a street of shops offering body-piercing, cappucino, cellphones, smokelessness — all those fads which define the Nineties, if we are to believe Nineties lifestyle magazines. And in the midst of the film’s self-conscious check-list of all that is truly Nineties, we […]
A human rights foreign policy is a laudable ideal, but=20 it leads to a minefield of conflicting priorities,=20 writes Danny Titus ONE cannot but wholeheartedly support the Mail Guardian’s headline last week: “Let human rights lead=20 the way in SA foreign policy”. South Africa is moving towards adding the international=20 element of human rights to […]
The Kunene Brothers are branching out into military hardware. Jim Caredig reports Black business is poised to penetrate the military bastion of the old South Africa. The Mail & Guardian has learnt that Kunene Finance Company (KFC) is to buy a 10 percent stake next week in Grinaker Electronics Limited (GEL). KFC is a wholly […]
Simon Segal CNA-GALLO’S dominance of South Africa’s retail book industry will soon be challenged by two new players, one of which is opening the country’s largest book store at the end of October. The CNA-Gallo group, through its 302 CNA outlets and 10 Exclusive Books shops, accounts for some 75 percent of South Africa’s general […]
South Africa has committed itself to an injection of=20 human rights principles into its foreign policy. As one=20 expert argues , there is no simple, mechanistic way to=20 do this. To refuse to have any contact or trade with=20 countries who show disrespect for human rights is to=20 condemn ourselves to a return to international=20 […]
There’s too much theory, too little skill on this year’s Martienssen Prize exhibition, argues IVOR POWELL WHAT is to be said about the Wits University fine arts department’s Martienssen Prize Exhibition, which opened this week at the Gertrude Posel Gallery? Just that the most arresting piece on the exhibition in fact isn’t on it at […]
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission: South Africa=20 can learn important lessons from the 15 truth=20 commissions around the world during the past two=20 Eddie Koch and Gaye Davis WHEN the Mothers of Plaza De Mayo gather at 3pm every=20 Thursday to bang pots in the centre of Buenos Aires,=20 they highlight a paradox that marks […]
AS the Truth Commission comes into being, it is as well=20 to dispel some of the humbug surrounding it. There are those who argue that this commission will=20 discover that strange phenomenon called The Truth. Even=20 if we were naive enough to believe that truth was=20 something a group of wise people could find in […]
CINEMA: Trevor Steele-Taylor MICHELE SOAVI’S magnificent Della Morte Dell Amore, which has crept on to the circuit at the 8 Cult Cinema in Rosebank, is likely to creep as shyly off the circuit if last Saturday night’s audience of four is anything to go by. Sad — for this is a hugely entertaining and visually […]
Until now a secret, SA’s classification of potential=20 arms-buying countries reveals 30 blacklisted countries,=20 reports Stefaans Brummer NIGERIA, Libya, Sudan, Iraq, Yemen … These are some=20 of the 30-odd countries blacklisted by South Africa’s=20 new human rights-leaning classification of arms client=20 countries. The secret list is published by the Mail Guardian today. The classification is […]
Gavin du Venage GAUTENG Safety and Security Minister Jessie Duarte has=20 been snubbed by magistrates after they refused to meet=20 her to discuss bail conditions for people charged with=20 violent crimes. Duarte asked for a meeting last month to discuss bail=20 conditions, in particular those for people accused of=20 taxi-related violence. The request was turned […]
GOLF: Jon Swift THE South African Professional Golf Association (SAPGA) is bidding to include three European Tour tournaments in this year’s event roster. In this, there is potentially a lot of long-term benefit. But there is some less than welcome news in the shorter term. It could be argued that the inclusion of the Lexington […]
The great white poachers of the Limpopo Valley have=20 been taken on by a lone ranger, reports Fiona Macleod Sergeant Barnard — the new commander at the Pont Drift=20 station near Alldays — has declared war against the=20 white farmers, police and conservation authorities in=20 the area who have for years been involved in poaching=20 […]
The Western Cape has come out tops as South Africa’s most competitive province in a report issued this week on the competitiveness of the nine provinces by the Foundation for Research and Development (FRD). Gauteng ranked second, followed by KwaZulu/Natal, Free State, Eastern Transvaal, North-West, Eastern Cape, Northern Province and Northern Cape. The provinces were […]
Justin Pearce As an international campaign to ban landmines was=20 launched in South Africa this week, campaigners=20 expressed concern that the state-owned arms=20 manufacturers should profit both from the manufacture=20 and the removal of mines. It was disclosed this week that Mechem, a division of=20 South African arms giant Denel, is almost certain to=20 assume […]
CINEMA: Stanley Peskin FRANCO ZEFFIRELLI’S Sparrow is imitation Luchino Visconti (perhaps a homage to The Leopard) and ersatz James Ivory, in particular A Room with a View, which it resembles on a number of occasions. Sparrow is undoubtedly expensive and opulent, but ultimately it emerges as no more than a dime-a-dozen Zeffirelli film. Here is […]
Clive Simpkins PALLO JORDAN is emphatic about not privatising Telkom, yet the Post Office — its sister megalith in our communications industry — is an example of monopolistic and bureaucratic business at its worst. I wrote recently that the mail service was degenerating into a non-service. It’s actually got worse. I received no mail in […]
Pat Sidley IT’S midnight, you’re on the table at HF Verwoerd=20 hospital. You’ve been told that your life has been=20 severely limited by your ailing heart and lungs. In a shooting on the Ben Schoeman highway, a perfectly=20 good set of heart and lungs has become available — but=20 your surgeon cannot go ahead and […]
What do you do when you discover your domestic worker=20 is HIV-positive? A Johannesburg doctor, who cannot be=20 named for professional reasons, came across two=20 startlingly different cases I am a doctor employed in one of the public hospitals=20 in Johannesburg. One of my duties is to consult with=20 patients in the hospitals’ so-called HIV […]
Gaye Davis and Eddie Koch MARIUS SCHOON is to sue former spy Craig Williamson for=20 R1-million in damages arising from the 1984 parcel bomb=20 which killed his wife, Jeanette, and six-year-old=20 daughter Katryn in Angola in 1984. Williamson has said he wants to apply for amnesty=20 before the truth commission. In terms of the act, […]
GOLF: Jon Swift IT WAS hard to equate John Daly, the man who held the claret jug aloft at St Andrews last weekend, with the red-eyed rebel who had to be carried shirtless, rubber legged and near comatose to his room at the Sun City But then, they are surely not the same person. This […]
An agreement by South Africa to store Iranian=20 crude oil has incensed environmental groups and human=20 rights advocates, reports Rehana Rossouw THE oil trade and oil money are probably the dirtiest=20 in the world, and South Africa was soiling its human=20 rights track record and possibly its environment by=20 agreeing to store Iranian oil, say […]
MARIKE DE KLERK won’t be lunching with President Nelson=20 Mandela on Friday — she wasn’t invited. Tienie Vorster=20 and Elize Botha will be there, alongside Adelaide Tambo=20 and Albertina Sisulu, at a lunch hosted by the=20 President for the wives of former South African prime=20 ministers, presidents and liberation movement leaders.=20 Amina Cachalia, who was […]
Gauteng Finance MEC Jabu Moleketi talks to Aspasia Pragmatic idealist and communist, Jabu Moleketi, Gauteng Finance and Economics MEC is a living contradiction. In the space of a year, he has evolved from an MK soldier and communist party strategist into a convincing economics planner. Moleketi himself does not see an ideological conflict. “I do […]
Mapula Sibanda AN enraged husband gunned down his wife and her lover=20 in Sebokeng last Friday — and ignited a wave of=20 violence that left 15 people dead. The explosive mayhem laid bare the mounting tensions=20 over control of Sebokeng’s five hostels among various=20 Xhosa clans and Basothos. “I knew the man who died from […]
Shadley Nash Eastern Cape Muslims responding to a call to take up=20 arms against the rebel Serbs in Bosnia are being=20 trained in guerrilla warfare at a secret venue outside=20 Port Elizabeth. Sources have also confirmed that a training ground has=20 been established in Pietermaritzburg and another is=20 expected to be established in Cape Town. […]
Ethiopian Haile Gebresilasie is challenging the Kenyan domination of middle-distance events ATHLETICS: Julian Drew WHILE in South Africa this year middle-distance track running has been through something of a renaissance, thanks largely to the exploits of Shadrack Hoff and Hendrik Ramaala, in Europe the middle-distance world records have been taking a substantial battering. First to […]
Eastern Cape civil servants are fighting against a=20 decision to axe about 7 000 government jobs, reports=20 Steuart Wright A SHOWDOWN is looming between the Eastern Cape=20 government, which is preparing to cut its bloated and=20 inefficient bureaucracy, and the civil servants=20 fighting to retain their posts. The province’s 155 613 civil servants were caught […]
SOUTH Africa was a delegate at the International=20 Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) in=20 Cairo in September 1994. The conclusions emanating from=20 that conference have ramifications for planners not=20 only within governments but for marketers as well,=20 particularly in the light of our own Reconstruction and=20 Development Programme.=20 Given the shifts in thinking as […]
M&G reporters After battling to integrate former enemies into South Africa’s National Defence Force, the SANDF is now facing an even bigger challenge: how to demobilise 30 000 soldiers. Jakkie Cilliers, Director of the Institute of Defence Policy (IDP), says it was a mistake to integrate before demobilising. “Now, after they have decided who joins […]
Anne Eveleth Thirteen people, including two children, were rushed to hospital this week after inhaling petrol fumes following a pipeline leak in the Durban South Industrial Basin. Residents of Merebank complained on Monday of strong odours from an underground pipeline connected to the South African Petroleum Refineries of Shell and British Petroleum (Sapref) in their […]