Justin Pearce South Africa is lagging way behind its neighbours in committing itself to internationally recognised human rights agreements — and Amnesty International (AI) has urged the government to rectify the situation and make the promotion of human rights a cornerstone of its foreign policy. “South Africa has a tremendous reputation and prestige in the […]
Gaye Davis JUSTICE Minister Dullah Omar said on Thursday he would be meeting with President Nelson Mandela, “hopefully within the next few days”, to finalise the procedure for appointing members of the Truth Commission. Urgency will be the watchword: the 18-month lifespan of the Truth Commission started ticking away this week, when President Mandela’s signature […]
The new Police Bill balances human rights with the need to combat crime, writes Azhar Cachalia t is probably true that crime has become the factor which occupies the minds of South Africans more than any other issue in our new democracy. As the police, courts and communities battle to deal with the problem, we […]
The Mail & Guardian recently wrote to cabinet ministers asking an innocuous question. The replies, or lack of them, were rather enlightening … Minister of Public Enterprises Stella Sigcau is the winner of the Mail & Guardian’s first Cabinet Efficiency Test (CET). The CET was conducted to measure the speed and competence with which cabinet […]
Mick Cleary meets Brian Mitchell, the trainer=20 championing Soweto’s ghetto blasters BRIAN MITCHELL drives a white top-of-the-range Corvette=20 sports car. There are many places you might choose to=20 park it in Johannesburg at night. The suburb of=20 Booysens is not one of them. But there, on the main=20 road to Soweto, alongside the shuttered windows, […]
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 […]
Reg Rumney The South African Chamber of Business (Sacob) has=20 cautioned against bringing in “dedicated” taxes and=20 levies such the one suggested to fund a new health=20 Opposition to such taxes is set out in the chamber’s=20 submission on corporate tax to the Katz Tax Commission,=20 released this week. “The whole rationale for dedicated taxes […]
CRICKET: Jon Swift KRISH MACKERDHUJ and the United Cricket Board (UCB) he=20 heads are faced with a problem shared with the majority=20 of nations in the cricket-playing world. It is simply this: how to fill the empty stands over=20 five long days of a Test match. “People had become too=20 used to the one-day game […]
In an intriguing Coca-Cola Cup final clash, the=20 Orlando Pirates attackers come up against the=20 unyielding Wits defenders SOCCER: Nelson Rashava CAN sheer skill overcome motivation, commitment and=20 perseverance on the big occasion? Will Orlando Pirates=20 regain their confidence and verve after a drab display=20 against Bloemfontein Celtic? Can underdogs Wits=20 University sustain their dominance […]
Karen Harverson South Africa will not accept foreign aid unless it can=20 afford to finance the follow-through infrastructure or=20 it will end up like the rest of Africa — full of half- built hospitals and unfinished roads, said Finance=20 Minister Chris Liebenberg.=20 Speaking at a recent business breakfast, Liebenberg=20 said South Africa had a reputation […]
Rocky’s on a roll, and he’s doing his damnedest to shake off the moss of his past, reports Stefaans BrUmmer ROCKY MALEBANE-METSING — coup maker, would-be provincial premier, ANC ally turned thorn — has reinvented his role in politics. The vehicle for the emergence of the new Rocky is the “triple-P”, his People’s Progressive Party, […]
THEATRE: David Le Page CUBA and His Teddy Bear: it sounds like a children’s=20 play, and by and large it is likely to be adolescents=20 who will most enjoy this frank work about the=20 relationship between a father, Cuba, his son, Teddy,=20 and drugs — a rather unique menage a trois, in which=20 the imperfection […]
Marion Edmunds The Speaker of the National Assembly, Dr Frene Ginwala, has a British passport, which has been renewed since the April elections. She denies it represents a lack of faith in her own country. Ginwala said this week she always travelled on her South African passport, and that she did not think that she […]
Gauteng’s Security MEC Jessie Duarte is ready to defy the Constitution — if that’s what it takes to halt the spiral of taxi warfare, reports Jonathan Ancer Warring taxi drivers were warned this week that they would be denied bail if arrested. Speaking at a conference of the South African Long Distance Taxi Association (Saldta), […]
Gaye Davis URGING stronger sanctions against French President Jacques Chirac’s decision to resume South Pacific nuclear tests, a range of South African organisations have called on the government to sever military and nuclear ties with France. Spanning environmental groups and religious and human rights bodies, the organisations made the call in letters to Foreign Minister […]
Anne Eveleth Pietermaritzburg Mayor Rob Haswell’s call this week for the Durban-Maritzburg corridor to become South Africa’s 10th province — divided by soft boundaries from the rest of conflict-ridden KwaZulu/Natal — has struck at the heart of the incessant demarcation wrangles stalling Durban’s local government process. Won by the African National Congress in last year’s […]
A behind-the-scenes battle is raging in the government as state communication agency Sacs fights for its life, reports Gaye Davis A battle for the heart and sole of government communications policy is underway. The first shots have been fired in a series of behind-the-scenes skirmishes between government spokespeople and the central state information agency, the […]
Nelson Rashavah WE still have a lot to learn about the good and bad=20 aspects of soccer, we are told. Good quality=20 performances are judged not in pre-season friendlies,=20 but in competitive full-blooded battles of the English=20 Premier League or the UEFA Cup. The bit that comes with competitive football might be=20 absent but with […]
Reg Rumney Between 1990 and 1994 the income of squatters in=20 Gauteng declined in real, or adjusted-for-inflation,=20 terms while that of hostel residents stayed much the=20 same and those living in houses were much better off. This is the finding of a Unisa Bureau of Market=20 Research report on income and spending of black=20 households […]
Marion Edmunds President Nelson Mandela’s office has intervened in the selection of Land Claims Court judges in a bid to include women on the shortlist of nominees. Presidential spokesman Parks Mankahlana confirmed this week that the office would be asking the Judicial Services Commission to discuss new candidates, despite the fact that public hearings to […]
Jean-Pierre Rossouw MOVEABLE FEAST MANY classic yarns begin at the seaside, a weathered=20 jetty leading into the water, a few gulls screeching on=20 the bollards. Add a thin wind and a few locals casting=20 hand-lines over the edge, and you’ve got the setting=20 for a great adventure. Now put yourself in the scene=20 and, because […]
CRICKET: Jon Swift THE initial reaction to the International Cricket=20 Council’s (ICC) ruling on the naming of squads for the=20 1996 World Cup in Pakistan was that the process was=20 being hurried along with undue haste. Perhaps so, but it needs to be looked at more closely=20 from this country’s perspective. Not least of all=20 […]
Justin Pearce THE boy whose designer tackies went up in flames=20 decided things had gone a bit too far. He’d come along=20 to an honest techno rave, was minding his own business=20 at 120 beats per minute, when this flaming tennis ball=20 came rolling across the floor, reducing R500 worth of=20 footwear to a charred […]
This weekend’s IFP national conference will look at ways for the party to consolidate its power in KwaZulu/Natal, report Ann Eveleth and Mehlo Mvelase The rumour mills have been peculiarly quiet this week in the run-up to the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) national conference opening in Ulundi tonight. Party sources poured cold water on earlier […]
Eastern Transvaal Premier Mathews Phosa, in The Mark Gevisser Profile When Mathews Phosa was at high-school in Acornhoek in the early 1970s, he and a group of students were given a chilling ultimatum after disrupting a Parents’ Day event: they could choose between expulsion or being stripped naked and lashed with a hippo-hide sjambok. “Our […]
The process leading to the acceptance of the new Labour Relations Bill is more important than the outcome, argues Andrew Levy In terms of a long-running show, with episodes regularly ending with the parties close to the edge of the cliff, the negotiations over the draft Labour Relations Bill seem to have (for the time […]
The work at this year’s Grahamstown Festival rejoiced=20 in cultural freedom — and shied away from socio- political issues, writes Justin Pearce FOUR African men speaking algemeen beskaafte Afrikaans,=20 while a rainbow-nation audience convulses with laughter=20 as they impersonate traffic cops, tsotsis, and the Paul=20 Kruger statue. It all adds up to a vision of […]
THERE appears — this week at least — to be no contradiction in South African society which cannot be resolved, no chasm which cannot be crossed, no disagreement which negotiation cannot end. An optimistic conclusion? Certainly, but justified in a week when organised labour, business and government have agreed on the content of a comprehensive […]
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 […]
In this further extract from the manuscript of former security policeman Paul Erasmus, he describes his experiences in then-South West Africa, where he did border duty working alongside Koevoet ONE day, our group was given supposedly reliable information of a suspect “terr” weapons smuggling network, which was using sympathetic Ovambo long- distance drivers to convey […]
Chris Ball, CEO of the Cape Town 2004 Olympic Bid=20 Company for one month now, talks to Julian Drew about=20 the current state of the bid CHRIS BALL believes the 2004 Olympic Games “is quite=20 simply the biggest economic opportunity that South=20 Africa will ever have”. It is for this reason that he decided to […]
Jonathan Ancer Rasping Rocker Joe Cocker could be the nemesis of Riani De Wet, North-West Province’s MEC for Media, Arts and This week, the 27-year-old ANC MEC was battling for her political survival amid allegations that she had used government funds to hire a plane to take her and her friends to Joe Cocker’s concert […]