Gaye Davis WARNING that local government transition was heading into “white waters”, Dr Frederik Van Zyl Slabbert this week appealed to politicans engaged in demarcation dogfights to settle their differences, saying any delays in the process would lead to conflict. If transforming local government became bogged down in lengthy court actions, local elections would be […]
Reg Rumney While the government is pressing on with attempts to get South Africa preferential trade access to the European Union (EU) in terms of the Lome Convention, business seems lukewarm. The Lome Convention gives products from underdeveloped countries access to European markets, and could boost sales in Europe of certain South African products, particularly […]
A light-hearted look at some developments on the business and financial scene * The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) dismissed a complaint against a Paul Revere ad by the Tobacco Action Committee. The committee said the horse used in the ad was subjected to passive smoking, noting the rider’s cigarette was closer than a metre to […]
The African Development Bank meeting to elect a new=20 president turned into a ‘circus’. Kevin Rafferty in Abuja,=20 Nigeria, reports A meeting of governors of the African Development Bank=20 broke up in disarray in Abuja, Nigeria, this week after=20 failing to elect a new president.=20 The governors will meet again in the headquarters city of=20 […]
Shaun de Waal=20 CHEAP LIVES by Antony Sher (Little, Brown, R79,99)=20 SOME years ago, as the first buds of a new South African=20 dispensation began to open, much ink was expended in=20 speculation about what new forms our literature would now=20 take. It was assumed that the exigencies that drove the=20 apartheid-era novels of such […]
CINEMA: Digby Ricci THAT acerbically brilliant novelist and essayist, Brigid Brophy, once titled an essay on Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women: “A Masterpiece, and Dreadful”. The “dreadful” aspects, inevitably, provoke the most enjoyable and unabashed tears: Marmee’s long- suffering, instructive “storytelling” (“So they agreed to stop complaining, to enjoy the blessings already possessed”), Beth’s affectionate […]
Trade unions are planning a major offensive against the new Labour Relations Bill, reports Eddie Koch ORGANISED labour flexed its muscles this week as talks between trade unions and employers over the new Labour Relations Bill headed for deadlock. The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) will hold an emergency executive meeting at the […]
With the changing climate in local banking Jacques Magliolo looks at which banks are likely to come out tops South Africa’s four major banks have girded their loins to face a tough future as interest rate rises squeeze their margins. Brian Feldtman, banking analyst at stockbrokers EW Balderson, says that Amalgamated Banks of South Africa […]
The theme of this year’s World Environment Day, being=20 staged in South Africa for the first time, is rooted in the=20 struggle for democracy and unity Eddie Koch reports SOME years ago Albie Sachs, then the ANC guru on=20 constitutional matters, wrote that an end to apartheid was=20 the balm that would mend the scars […]
Right-wing political groups are trying to use a UN initiative to protect indigenous peoples for their own political ends, reports Eddie Koch A GROUP of boers, bushmen, basters and Zulu nationalists will make a bizarre set of bedfellows when they rally around the vierkleur, the pennant of the white right, at a conference this month […]
THEATRE: David le Page=20 ANTONY Sher would have had a field day at the Windybrow=20 Centre for the Arts, currently hosting a season of New=20 South African Plays. For this is a theatre complex where=20 plays occasionally have to be cancelled, on evenings when=20 cast outnumbers audience. This is not always a fair=20 process. A […]
The IBA has a new target in its sights — satellite TV — and it’s heading for a battle with those who believe it has no business there. Dirk de Vos reports EARLY this year, the Independent Broadcasting Authority attempted to amend the Act by which it is governed by inserting the words “space stations”, […]
GOLF: Jon Swift WE are a nation of immense expectations, buoyed by the optimism which tends to flatten out the hills of the failures which are so inherently part of the human condition. In the realm of South African golf, thank heaven we We have had any number of success stories within the boundaries of […]
Investors expected SAB’s centenary year to be a good one=20 and they were not disappointed, reports Jacques Magliolo The South African Breweries’ (SAB) centenary year was a=20 momentous one. The country experienced a successful=20 transition to democracy and the group heralded its 100th=20 year of operation with record results — attributable=20 earnings rose by 30 […]
M-Net is planning to unbundle MultiChoice. Jacques Magliolo=20 asks whether this move will benefit shareholders=20 Electronic Media Networks (M-Net) is once again warning=20 shareholders to trade their shares with caution.=20 M-Net is proposing to unbundle MultiChoice into two=20 separate entities and has returned to the market with=20 promises that the unbundling will benefit shareholders. In=20 […]
KwaZulu/Natal’s People and Parks conference was a new=20 milestone in conservation policy, reports Ann Eveleth THE future of game reserves in KwaZulu/Natal will de-pend=20 on how the question of land reform is resolved in that=20 province. This was the central issue to emerge from a=20 landmark conference about conservation and community=20 development held in Durban […]
RUGBY: Barney Spender=20 AFTER a noisy, boisterous Saturday night to celebrate a=20 Welsh victory over Japan, the Hard Rock Cafe in=20 Bloemfontein was a ghost pub on Sunday at lunchtime.=20 Michelle, a bubbly waitress, who had seen the tips over the=20 previous 10 days rise quicker than a Kobus Wiese line-out=20 lift, cut a forlorn […]
Moveable Feast Humphrey Tyler THERE just has to be a rather special atmosphere about a really good curry restaurant. No, no — not sleazy. But often fairly ordinary chairs, for example, and generally inexpensive tables. Like the sort you find in cafes. Hopefully you will also see determined women in saris striding out of the […]
The head of Avia Airlines has a shady past, reports Stefaans BrUmmer GERT de Klerk, the former airline mechanic whose Avia Airlines has made him South Africa’s Richard Branson, built his empire flying clandestine military contracts to war-torn Angola in the 1980s. Avia this month became South Africa’s first independent carrier to ply the lucrative […]
The ‘black empowerment purchase’ of JCI and Johnnic has=20 important implications, reports Reg Rumney The National Empowerment Consortium (NEC) is poised to buy=20 a big stake in Johnnic, the industrial firm that came out=20 of the unbundling of conglomerate Johannesburg Consolidated=20 The details of how the union and black-business-based=20 consortium intends pulling this off are […]
Angeline Oyog in Paris Industrialised nations may in the long term have more to=20 gain than lose from the rapid expansion of emerging=20 economies in certain developing countries, says the=20 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development=20 (OECD) in a new report. Looking at long-term economic interests, the report said=20 the industrialised OECD members should be […]
The Beatles came back, the Stones kept going — and Blur and Oasis echoed an old rivalry, writes Shaun de Waal TWENTY-FIVE years after they broke up, The Beatles are back — well, sort of. The band broke up in 1970, and John Lennon was killed in 1980, but in 1995 the remaining Beatles put […]
1 Black Grape: It’s Great When You’re Straight … Yeah! (BMG) 2 Pulp: Different Class (Polygram) 3 James Phillips: Made in South Africa (Shifty/Tic Tic Bang) 4 Neil Young with Pearl Jam: Mirror Ball (Warner Bros) 5 Urban Creep: Sea Level (Shifty/Tic Tic Bang) 6 Boukman Eksperyans: Libte (Pran Pou Pran’l!) (Mango) 7 Gito Baloi: […]
Fred de Vries=20 EDUCATION, information and entertainment: that’s what South=20 Africa’s first music industry exhibition, Samix ’95, is=20 about If you’re not interested in the workshops and the=20 equipment, you can still come along and have fun listening=20 to the music, says Samix director Karl Heinz Lang.=20 An industry effort to develop music in the […]
Age: Somewhere between angry young actor and “old fart” of South African political theatre. Claim to fame: Overcame parental prejudice that grown men should not appear in public and make fools of themselves to win a slew of acting awards including an American Tony for his Broadway performance in The Present occupation: Risking being labelled […]
Sam Sklair=20 LEE RITENOUR/LARRY CARLTON: Larry and Lee (GRP)=20 IF you are into contemporary jazz/fusion guitar playing,=20 you can’t do much better than this CD. It gets together two=20 of the most skilled and versatile players of this genre,=20 and it is almost impossible to decide which one is playing=20 solo at any time. Lee […]
Clive Simpkins takes a look at the Loeries — the Comrades=20 Marathon of advertising and marketing THE advertising industry Loerie Awards have come and gone=20 and the usual hangover-impaired postmortem is in full=20 The awards, where the marketing community recognises=20 advertising excellence, have always been controversial and=20 this year was no exception. Even as the […]
Bronwen Jones Soweto’s first bookshop will open its doors in Dobsonville on June 1. The bookshop idea, which has been tossed back and forth since last year in NGO-land, initially met with doubts and tales of doom. Publishers and possible investors wondered: “How safe will our stock be? How will we be paid? How can […]
Shirley Kossick THERE has been a bumper crop of women’s writing this year, both in fiction and biography. Pride of place must go to Pat Barker, whose novel The Ghost Road (Viking) swept in to win the Booker Prize ahead of Salman Rushdie’s favoured The Moor’s Last Sigh The final volume in Barker’s trilogy about […]
‘You need to know what they are feeding on and how they=20 are behaving, then decide on a strategy.’ This is=20 Cyril Ramaphosa speaking not about his tactics in=20 parliament, but about one of his greatest passions:=20 trout fishing. Lesley Cowling reports There is an urban legend which gives the trout a broker’s=20 role in […]
Eddie Koch The African National Congress this week released details about how members can bring charges against individuals in the movement accused of breaching the party’s code of conduct before its disciplinary According to a draft disciplinary procedure drawn up by the organisation’s national executive committee, charges can be “initiated for violations of the basic […]
Ann Eveleth African National Congress (ANC) and Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) leaders have taken off their gloves to wage an all-fronts battle between their respective power- As negotiators from both parties prepared to sit down at the table this week for what turned out to be little more than “talks before talks before talks” discussions, […]