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 […]
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 […]
With most of the stayaway Springboks back in the Transvaal team=20 and the Blue Bulls up and running, the Currie Cup is really=20 starting this weekend RUGBY: Jon Swift IN THE wake of the tidal wave of World Cup enthusiasm and=20 having navigated the trough of a player revolt, South African=20 rugby can truly be […]
‘Papa’ de Klerk is the hero of the National Party youth. Marion Edmunds attended their weekend conference and found a vibrant, energetic collection of New Nats ‘You’re simply the best,” screamed Tina Turner as National Party leader, “Papa” de Klerk, stepped off the stage into the arms of excited members of the Jeug Aksie. Bodyguards […]
Mapula Sibanda A security briefcase fitted with 41 000 volts of electricity, a=20 piercing alarm, and a red smoke dye-bomb is becoming popular=20 among businessmen transporting cash takings in the=20 Johannesburg central business district area. Looking like an ordinary black briefcase, Safe Case operates in=20 such a way that only the authorised bearer can carry […]
“Israeli youth dances to a different drum”) is designed to give the impression that the expansion of Jerusalem was primarily at Arab expense, and that all orthodox Jews are desecrators of the Sabbath. The truth is that the expansion was, for the most part, through development of State-owned land but, in the few cases where […]
CHILDREN’S THEATRE: Di Mannie A VISIT to the Johannesburg Youth Theatre is fast becoming=20 synonymous with holiday entertainment, each production having=20 its own blend of humour and surprise. For The Emperor’s=20 Nightingale, the main room (or theatre) in this romantic old=20 house has been “turned sideways”, using the length of the room=20 to present the […]
South Africa’s real economic challenges are beginning to=20 Reg Rumney reports Alarm bells have begun to ring for the economic outlook for=20 South Africa. As the election “miracle” begins to be discounted,=20 doubts about the underlying soundness of the economic structure=20 have begun to mount. It is not only that economists are by nature pessimists […]
THE “Woman Friday” profile on Judy Sexwale (M&G June 30 to July 7) makes Janet Wilhelm sound like a feminist Robinson Crusoe who’s been stranded on a desert island with nothing to read but The Female Eunuch. Wilhelm invokes Germaine Greer as her foil to a supposedly anti- feminist Judy Sexwale. While Greer’s rapier wit […]
MORE than 54 000 tickets have been sold on the main=20 programme of the Grahamstown Arts Festival. The most popular=20 shows, predictably, are Faustus in Africa, The Island and My=20 Plunge to Fame. Ticket sales for the Fringe are up from last year=20 with more than 15 shows sold out, including last year’s hugely=20 popular […]
Jean-Pierre Rossouw MOVEABLE FEAST IT seems there’s a rule that applies to seafood when you move=20 away from the coast: the emphasis is no longer on the fish. At the=20 Cape coast, seafood generally refers to those swimming things=20 restaurants call linefish. Perhaps it has something to do with the=20 fact that crawling things need […]
The closure of the Goodman Gallery points to disturbing trends in=20 the art market, reports IVOR POWELL THE news is out: after 29 years as an institution in the art world,=20 the Goodman Gallery in Hyde Park will be closing its doors at the=20 end of August, pulling down its lighting tracks, clearing its=20 storerooms, […]
CINEMA: Digby Ricci ‘THE pictures painted on the inner eyelids of infants … are not in=20 paste,” Edna St Vincent Millay memorably understates in her=20 poem Intense and Terrible, I Think, Must Be the Loneliness of=20 Infants, and the most impressive achievement of Peter Jackson’s=20 remarkable Heavenly Creatures is the union of frenzy,=20 sensuousness, picturebook […]
Gaye Davis JUST two years ago, the very idea of a Socialist International (SI) meeting in South Africa would have been inconceivable — so this week’s two-day meeting in Cape Town of the council of the world federation of social democratic, socialist and labour movements in Cape Town was richly symbolic. That it took place […]
Education Ministry bureaucrats are trying to prevent ideological changes to schools’ history syllabuses, reports Philippa Garson THE education department has launched an inquiry into the role played by one of its “old guard” officials in allegedly sabotaging the process of amending the history syllabus. Participants in the National Education and Training Forum’s curriculum sub-commitee on […]
Leon Perlman reports=20 on Telkom’s new range=20 of high-tech services State telecommunications monopoly, Telkom, is discovering the=20 joys of high-tech innovation and marriage with the=20 Reconstruction and Development Programme. But it had to be=20 dragged to the altar. Swiftnet, formed last month to run the FastNet service, is touted=20 by Telkom insiders as the beginning […]
The science boffins are worried about whether the government will fund their research, or switch the money to RDP work. Jonathan Ancer and Fumane Diseko report Scientists are holding their breath while the government prepares a White Paper laying out plans for research and development. With the new government likely to use its limited resources […]
CINEMA: Stanley Peskin DIE HARD (With a Vengeance), the third of the Die Hard films,=20 reunites Bruce Willis, as maverick New York cop John McClane,=20 with director John McTiernan.=20 McClane is the victim of a trickster who calls himself Simple=20 Simon. Simon’s games are predicated on children’s nursery=20 rhymes and riddles which McClane and his […]
Mick Cleary on the unique appeal of Wimbledon,=20 the tournament which is=20 an enduring love affair=20 WHAT image do you take away from Wimbledon — a bucket of=20 sweat or a bowl of strawberries? As serve after serve crashed into=20 the parched turf over the opening nine days, reducing play to a=20 sequence of one-hit […]
The government spent R140 000 on a glossy new magazine — and closed it after the first edition, writes Bronwen Jones THE government-run South African Communication Service (Sacs) is facing a dramatic reshuffle of resources as its chic, sleek, new magazine Women Today bit the dust upon With severe understaffing and a battle underway between […]
THE cyber-corporation may be nearer to South Africa than many=20 people think. The Internet has featured ever more prominently in=20 discussions, articles, computer exhibitions, new software packages=20 and marketing strategy discussions over the past few months. What sounded like futuristic predictions a year ago, have moved=20 from being virtual to partial to actual reality. American […]
Eddie Koch reports on a commission of inquiry into witchcraft killings in the Northern Province CASE 1: Tshavhungwe approached Edward and asked him to find a living person from whom they could remove some parts. A friend of Edward’s suggested they should get one Nthatheni Negota (a young woman in her twenties), who used to […]
THERE’S a popular game in town and everyone’s playing it. It’s called baseball, but instead of hitting balls, participants are hitting rocks of cooked cocaine. There’s nothing new about freebasing cocaine, or batting, as it’s commonly called. But, in the past, it was a sport confined to the very rich and the very foolish. But […]
Living in Grahamstown’s Jazz Hotel is just like having a few=20 hundred people over for drinks, writes ALAN BOWEN I PICKED up a newspaper this morning to find that there is=20 indeed a world beyond the festival. However, it looked so bleak=20 and uninviting that I decided to re-enter the cocoon of jazz from=20 which […]
How did South Africa’s most popular singer end up a sad, semi-destitute occupant of a seedy Hillbrow hotel? Hazel Friedman traces the decline and fall of Brenda Fassie DRUG abuse is not the sole cause of the decline and fall of Brenda Fassie. She suffers from a much deeper malaise: loneliness. It was drugs which, […]
Justin Pearce in Grahamstown National Festival of the Arts: With more events on offer than=20 anyone could hope to attend, the Grahamstown festival becomes=20 whatever its thousands of visitors want it to be CULTURE is still a weapon of struggle. At least, the Wimpy=20 workers seemed to think so when they drew attention to their=20 […]