South Africa may have to forego its high-tech medical achievements in order to meet the needs of its many citizens. Rehana Rossouw reports Have a heart, says the head of Groote Schuur Hospital’s transplant unit, Dr Del Khan, to health authorities who are considering clamping down on high-tech surgery across the country. “Most people might […]
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 […]
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, […]
Parliament is too big for its building and most political parties believe that the number of MPs should eventually be reduced, writes Marion Edmunds SIZE does count — especially when it comes to organs of government. Many people believe that the national Parliament could function more effectively if the National Assembly and the Senate were […]
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 […]
Like a castrated bull required to make calves — that’s how Pule Zwane sees the new KwaZulu/Natal Peace THE KwaZulu/Natal Implementation of Peace Bill, gazetted a few weeks ago, is a bid to resurrect the already-dead — and ineffectual — Peace Committee. It is not clear who authored the Bill, as the province’s multi-party portfolio […]
Anne Eveleth Local affiliates of a US-based property group have joined forces with police to fingerprint young children in schools and shopping centres around the country. Welcomed by the South African Police Services as a “proactive measure” to help locate missing children, and lauded by the Electronic Realty Associates (ERA) as a “community service”, the […]
After years of silence, archetypal Gothic band The Mission is=20 alive, well — and playing in Johannesburg. FRED DE VRIES=20 THE Mission’s singer/guitarist, Wayne Hussey, has a reputation=20 for being loud and pretentious. His lyrics always used to be full of=20 quasi-religious symbolism; his music often fell on the wrong side=20 of pomp. And in […]
FORMER security policeman Greg Deegan this week wrote a poignant and hard-hitting letter to the Mail & Guardian, expressing the fury of the apartheid “footsoldiers” whose generals have run for cover. This is his letter: I was a member of the South African Police Security Branch and stationed for the major part of my service […]
A Science magazine poll has rated the University of Cape Town the top institution in the country for scientific research. The magazine has based its ratings on the number of citations scored by researchers working in South African institutions. Since 1981, UCT researchers have garnered 18 122 citations. The University of the Witwatersrand has placed […]
The appointment of Sello Aggrey Matsabu, 40, as an executive=20 chairman of Motorola SA, may have come as a surprise. For a=20 South African to head the local operation of this giant,=20 multinational is a vote of confidence in local management=20 Virtually unknown in the corporate world, Matsabu, nonetheless,=20 has had many years of training […]
Keith Harper in London Plans to build a 600- to 800-seat “super jumbo” have been put on=20 hold until next year because of high costs and lack of demand. Boeing and its four European partners this week confirmed the=20 technical feasibility of the scheme, which has been developed over=20 two years, but said: “Market studies […]
Stefaans Brummer FORMER police chief General Johan van der Merwe this week hit back at the Goldstone Commission for linking him to “criminal and despicable” police actions before the elections, charging Judge Goldstone with “the rape of the most basic principles of human rights”. Van der Merwe, who retired as police commissioner in March this […]
The Mark Gevisser Profile: Inkatha Freedom Party MP Farouk Cassim Farouk Cassim has literary aspirations for himself and his hometown. We sit in his bougainvillea-clad and rambling flat above his father-in-law’s dry-cleaning business on Stanger’s main road. The muezzin from the mosque next door blares, intermittently, as we eat the exquisite bread he bakes each […]
Marion Edmunds DEPUTY PRESIDENT Thabo Mbeki is considering a plan to grant so-called ” professionals” — doctors, prosecutors and accountants — better salaries and a measure of independence from the public service bargaining chamber. The plan was put on the table this week by the Medical Association of South Africa (Masa) in a bid to […]
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 […]