A new chain of bookshops is due to start up soon, with its first stores in the Gauteng area. Shaun de Waal A NEW bookshop chain is to open in South Africa, run by three former employees of Exclusive Books. To be called Facts & Fiction, it is just getting off the ground, with the […]
Reg Rumney Housing subsidies and infrastructure have the biggest chunk of allocations from the Reconstruction and Development Programme Fund — R1,4-billion out of R7,8-billion. This is revealed in Minister without Portfolio Jay Naidoo’s report to Parliament last week, Taking the RDP Forward. The document shows R1,4-billion has been allocated from the RDP Fund to boost […]
Peter Marais, Western Cape MEC for Local Government, in The Mark Gevisser Profile I will testify, before a court of law, that Western Cape MEC for Local Government Peter Marais was stone- cold sober when, at the end of our interview, he launched into a serenade that included a hip-rotating Elvis impersonation, some Johnny Mathis […]
The Life Offices Associations’ Paul Truyens responds to Cheryl Carolus’ criticisms of the industry’s policy on HIV testing THE insurance industry is very aware of the whole issue surrounding Aids and the plight of HIV positive people. In order to put the industry’s dilemma into perspective though, it is necessary to go back to the […]
Kiri Te Kanawa is visiting South Africa at the height of her ability to draw crowds. Coenraad Visser reports IT was with a sense of relief that one greeted Dame Kiri Te Kanawa at her first encounter with the press shortly after her arrival in Johannesburg. She currently limits her public appearances to about 18 […]
ALTHOUGH many white farmers have reacted with outrage to Derek Hanekom’s new Land Reform Bill for labour tenants, the draft law is neither new nor revolutionary. It is, in fact, based on regulations that are common in free market societies, writes Andra The Land Reform (Labour Tenants) Bill, published in the Government Gazette this month […]
Justin Pearce Sixty-five-year-old Koos Joubert locked horns with the mighty Anglo American Corporation — and lost. After an out-of-court settlement this week, the Eastern Transvaal farmer faces the prospect of having to destroy his own home at his own expense. Joubert owns the farm Spitskop in Steelpoort, but Anglo owns the mineral rights. The land […]
BALLET: Stanley Peskin IN Marius Petipa’s Paquita, Roland Petit’s Carmen and Mikhail Fokine’s Firebird, Pact Ballet presents three works that are luxurious and richly satisfying in quite different Paquita (1881), originally a three-act ballet which has survived as a series of divertissements, has been given a new production. An impressively ornamented archway (designed by Riaan […]
Mick Cleary predicts that Will Carling’s side will adopt a sober approach to halt the All Blacks in their semifinal on ROB ANDREW’S kick fell to earth immediatley. Quite how long it takes England to come down to earth is probably the key to whether they can beat the All Blacks in Sunday’s The team […]
WITH regard to your two excellent articles (M&G May 12 to18), “Abortion — A Test for Women’s Rights” and “Miscarriage of Justice”. It is estimated that over 200,000 illegal abortions are performed in South Africa each year — many of which are unsafe and even result in death. Three black women die every day due […]
Movable Feast Humphrey Tyler THE first thing you do when you arrive at the Imperial Hotel in Pietermaritzburg in KwaZulu/Natal is wonder why on earth you didn’t bring your horse. This has nothing to do with the food. It is the early colonial atmosphere. (Actually, I don’t ride horses. Horses give me hay fever.) But […]
Jan Taljaard TRUE to his nickname, “Kaalvoet” Thysie de Villiers, the former Recce linked to the assassination of Professor Johan Heyns, appeared in court this week in a pair of shorts and bare feet. De Villiers, who had also been sought in connection with three other murders and a massive arms theft from a Voortrekkerhoogte […]
In the hardest game, a soft voice of seasoned humanity shines through: Eddie Futch is 83 and still punching his BOXING: Kevin Mitchell A LITTLE over a month after he accompanies Riddick Bowe to the ring for his world heavyweight title fight against Jorge Luis Gonzales in Las Vegas on June 17, Eddie Futch will […]
Office of the President Dear Walter, How the world is changing. The thought struck me last week, when I was delivering the Bram Fischer memorial lecture and Joel Joffe presented me with my papers from the Rivonia Trial that he has had in safe-keeping for all these years. There, among them, were my notes for […]
Ann Eveleth The Wildlife Society of Southern Africa has called for the creation of an environmental court to hear cases involving environmental disputes. Wildlife Society representative Jeremy Ridl, who made the submission to the first public hearing of the KwaZulu/Natal Constitutional Committee in Durban this week, said the multi-faceted nature of environmental disputes requires people […]
Iron-age sites reveal some astonishing artefacts — and shatter some dearly held beliefs, reports Bruce Around the time William the Conqueror was gloating over his victory against Britain in 1066, Iron-Age communities on the banks of the Limpopo River were bartering gold and ivory with Swahili traders for glass beads from Egypt, cotton from India […]
South Africa’s semifinal opponents, France, have power and flair, but they don’t always seem able to use these RUGBY: Jon Swift IN many ways the World Cup semifinal facing South Africa on Saturday will be something of a relief. Against the French at Kings Park in Durban there is the first real chance, since the […]
Justin Pearce Kathy Berman, producer of NNTV’s youth magazine programme The Works, is to conduct her own defence when the SABC appears before the Broadcasting Complaints Commission (BCC) today. The SABC has been summoned before the BCC in connection with an insert entitled Sex and Romance in the Nineties which was broadcast as part of […]
Lynda Loxton reports on moves to make the public service more creative and efficient More than a year after the first democratic elections, South Africa’s previously mainly white civil service has started to reflect the new South Africa. But if the recently released draft white paper on the transformation of the public service is anything […]
A police colonel, an army brigadier and a top Inkatha official have been charged with the 1987 KwaMakhutha massacre. Anne Eveleth this week revisited the scene where a priest and a dozen women and children were assassinated The sun was setting over the rambling hills of KwaMakhutha, 25km south of Durban, as we navigated the […]
Reg Rumney Like decrepit old age, the end of a marriage through death or divorce is painful to contemplate, but in the long run it could be more painful not to contemplate it. That is where a booklet such as Options at Marriage, recently published by insurance giant Old Mutual, comes in. The booklet spells […]
THEATRE: David le Page THE spirit of Roy Campbell currently haunts the Alexander Theatre, in writer and director Anthony Akerman’s play Dark Outsider. But it is not the robust and extravagant ghost we might expect. In the second act Uys Krige, played charmingly by Alex Ferns, hails in a splendid bon mot the experience of […]
Censorship under the new Constitution is to face its first major challenge as Hustler magazine loses patience with the Publications Control Board’s approach to what may or may not be displayed, reports Justin South Africa’s dinosaur censorship legislation is to face its first challenge in the Constitutional Court when Hustler magazine contests the banning of […]
Rehana Rossouw People campaigning for the new South African Constitution to promote a Christian state are political opportunists trying to reinstate minority baasskap, said African National Congress MP Carl Niehaus this week . Niehaus — who has a theology degree — was responding to the recent march on Parliament by several thousand conservative Christains demanding […]
Reg Rumney When is insurance not insurance? When it is offered by a company not registered as an insurer, of course. The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), in its 1994 annual report, states that it has submitted to an attorney general (AG) for possible further action the case of a furniture company which has […]
One offshoot of the controversy surrounding Iscor’s proposed Saldanha mill is that the locals are finally being consulted, reports Rehana Rossouw The good news about Iscor’s planned Saldanha steel mill is the emergence of real consultation and debate at grassroots level. This was well illustrated last Friday when cabinet members and members of the Western […]
TELEVISION: Justin Pearce ‘WE’LL be okay as long as we stay in the light,” insists FBI Agent Dana Scully — a trifle optimistically, perhaps, as she cowers beneath the guttering lightbulb connected to a generator that’s about to run out of petrol in the middle of the night in an impenetrable forest inhabited by swarming […]
MPs’ criticism of the Department of Foreign Affairs has provoked an extraordinary reaction from Rusty Evans, writes Rehana Rossouw IN an unprecedented broadside by a civil servant on parliament, Foreign Affairs Director General Rusty Evans has attacked criticism of his department from MPs as an effort to “discredit and destroy the political leadership and the […]
Justin Pearce A CIVIL suit against the African National Congress, Nelson Mandela and Cyril Ramaphosa arising from last year’s Shell House shootings has been stalled on the grounds that the applicant’s arguments were too vague. Masele Ndlovu, whose husband was shot dead in Johannesburg on March 28 1994, has brought the suit to seek compensation […]
Amid all the sharp and confusing exchanges between the African National Congress and the Inkatha Freedom Party, a strategy is emerging of the type that President Nelson Mandela is so astute at putting in On the one side, the police and various special investigators are closing in on IFP leaders and allies implicated in violence. […]
With three weeks to go, HUMPHREY TYLER begins the countdown to the Grahamstown Festival of the Arts RELAX. If you are going to the Standard Bank National Arts Festival next month, you won’t have to walk under step- ladders. Grahamstown will be ready for you. The staff in the Monument building no longer go to […]
SA’s Catholic bishops will not tolerate condom demonstrations in their Aids awareness programme, reports Mapula Sibanda An Aids awareness worker has been fired — for showing people how to use a condom. Chrys Matubatuba, 31, an Aids awareness co-ordinator for the South African Catholic Bishops Conference (SACBC) says his demise began last year after he […]