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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 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 […]
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, […]
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 […]
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 […]
In a second extract from his book, former security=20 police ‘dirty tricks’ expert Paul Erasmus tells how he=20 put the brakes on singer Roger Lucey’s career Whatever happened in that office God and the cops will only know. The law has ways of keeping it quiet So that nothing at all will show But at […]
The parliamentary ethics subcommittee is divided=20 over MPs’ outside financial interests, write=20 Eddie Koch and Marion Edmunds STRONG pressure for South African MPs to continue=20 earning lucrative salaries on top of their pay from=20 Parliament is coming from inside an ethics subcommittee=20 set up to devise rules on the controversial issue. Six of nine MPs […]
Chris Louw MOVEABLE FEAST TO me, the Fountains valley near Pretoria holds merry=20 memories of late-night revelry after our newspaper –=20 the late Oggendblad — had been put to bed. That was=20 more than 20 years ago, but I still hear the sounds of=20 songwriter Koos du Plessis, then an unknown sub-editor,=20 singing Kinders van […]
Chiefs choose the cash over loyalty to IFP leader=20 Mangosuthu Buthelezi, but the lure of parliamentary=20 payment is stronger, write Mehlo Mvelase and Ann=20 T HE Inkatha Freedom Party has pledged an all-out=20 battle to halt the implementation of the controversial=20 Renumeration of Traditional Leaders Act passed in=20 Parliament last week, but rumblings on the […]
ATHLETICS: Julian Drew SOUTH AFRICA’S top middle distance athlete got a far=20 from ideal send off at Jan Smuts Airport last week when=20 he flew to Europe to begin his campaign in preparation=20 for August’s world championships in Sweden. Shadrack Hoff and his coach Kenny Bouwer were checking=20 in for their flight when the sister […]
Rehana Rossouw DURING the July parliamentary recess, when the nation’s=20 leaders flee from Cape Town to service their=20 constituencies or simply take a break, their seats in=20 parliament will be filled by the future leaders of=20 South Africa when the South African Youth Parliament=20 Organised by the Street Law project, the initiative is=20 bringing together […]
Patrick Goodenough in East London Former Transkei military strongman Bantu Holomisa took=20 a leaf out of the CIA’s book when he sent a military=20 signal to abduct a wanted man from Johannesburg in 1991=20 “like the Americans did with Noriega”. Holomisa effectively confirmed this week that=20 Vulindlela Mbotoli, the prisoner pardoned and released=20 on Monday […]
Indian economic involvement in South=20 Africa has mushroomed. Reg Rumney reports The purchase by Indian brewery United Breweries=20 Investments (UB) of a 30 percent stake in National=20 Sorghum Breweries — reportedly for R70-million — is=20 the most visible sign of the growing economic co- operation between South Africa and India. UB had previously bought Mabula […]
Win or lose on the field, the South African under-19=20 team’s tour to England is a victory for development CRICKET: Rupert Cox RUGBY may have stolen cricket’s thunder as far as the=20 media spotlight is concerned in South Africa, but when=20 it comes to development and expansion of the respective=20 games, Ali Bacher and the […]
Gaye Davis DEPUTY President Thabo Mbeki has pledged that a woman=20 will be first choice to fill any minister’s or deputy=20 minister’s post that becomes vacant in future. Mbeki made the commitment when addressing women from=20 NGOs countrywide, who gathered at Midrand last weekend=20 in preparation for a global forum on women, which=20 starts in […]
Jacques Magliolo DESPITE growing local and international competition in=20 the electronics market, Johannesburg Stock Exchange- listed Log-Tek produced enviable results for its=20 financial year to end-April 1995.=20 Earnings per share climbed by a spectacular 138 percent=20 to 57,5 cents a share and a dividend of 17 cents (1994:=20 eight cents) was declared. This is a […]
Jacques Magliolo THE March 1995 Reserve Bank Bulletin outlines a number=20 of interesting South African stock market trends which=20 suggest that all major sectors have reached maturity=20 and are facing a sideways movement. Using an index of 100 for 1990, the following trends=20 were determined: * Industrial shares have reached maturity. After the=20 1987 stock […]
Marion Edmunds POLITICAL parties have launched a massive manhunt for=20 50 000 politicians. Their talent scouts are trawling=20 townships, suburbs and villages this month to find=20 ideal candidates for the local government elections.=20 All the major political parties have started screening=20 potential candidates and all want the best of local=20 talent for themselves. The exact […]
Sitting on a crate in a far corner behind the shelves,=20 a Drum magazine in his hand, Mabutho Dube looks like an=20 ordinary doorman as he buzzed customers in and out of=20 an emergency pharmacy in Rosettenville. The twenty-one-year-old, former Mofolo, Soweto, SDU=20 member is one of two Sibuyile security men hired after=20 armed robbers […]
Rainbow volk It really was a motley collection of organisations that=20 came forward to represent the volk at their meeting=20 with Nelson Mandela last week — they ranged from the=20 Verkennersbeweging to Dames Aktueel and Jong Dames=20 Dinamiek, and from the Vereniging van Oranjewerkers to=20 the SA Voetplaat-Personeel Vereniging. What interested=20 the manne in the […]
Justin Pearce NNTV this week cancelled a scheduled screening of the=20 documentary Jihad in America, following an onslaught of=20 complaints from angry Muslims. NNTV’s head of marketing, Red Metrowich, said the=20 station was initially determined to go ahead with the=20 screening, but the volume of calls had become so=20 “overwhelming” that NNTV had decided to […]
Land Affairs Minister Derek Hanekom, with the aid of=20 some sharp advisers from non-government organisations,=20 has had an uncanny run of success in dealing with an=20 issue that some have called the country’s seismic fault=20 — one that threatens those who dare to cross it with=20 tremors from both the left and right. But indications […]
Anne Eveleth South Africa’s first 24-hour Aids care centre has=20 opened in Durban, marking the culmination of five=20 months of determined effort by a dozen people whose=20 lives have been directly affected by the virus. The Durban Aids Care Centre aims to provide a “friendly=20 service” to the Aids and HIV community — and hopes […]
JOHN MAJOR took a gamble with his political career=20 because his party was divided. He triumphantly won the=20 gamble — but his party remains divided nevertheless.=20 This continuing paradox will cast a long shadow over=20 what is simply a sun-drenched political achievement: a=20 midsummer campaign launched in a rose garden nearly a=20 fortnight ago, clinched […]
ATHLETICS: Julian Drew THIS year South African long distance track running has=20 finally emerged from the dark ages into which it=20 slipped during sporting isolation. For a nation which=20 is brimful of such talent, South Africa’s regression in=20 this domain was nowhere more glaringly illustrated than=20 by Matthews Temane’s national 5 000m record of=20 13:25.15. […]
CINEMA: Stanley Peskin THE OX, which has as its background the severe drought=20 suffered by Sweden in the 1860s, is described as a true=20 story told by director Sven Nykvist. The narrative is=20 presented with the utmost clarity, but not without=20 subtlety. Although the director is self-effacing in the=20 presentation of his ostensibly simple homiletic, […]