The Government of National Unity is faced with a litmus test of its commitment to gender rights: whether to change existing abortion legislation for a “freedom of choice” Bill proposed by pro-choice activists, medical and legal An ad hoc parliamentary committee is considering submissions on abortion from all sectors of the community and the anti-choice […]
Residents of Cape Town’s gangster-ridden communities are making a determined effort to stem the spiral of crime and violence, reports Rehana Rossouw RASHIED and Rashaad Staggie are household names on the Cape Flats. The identical-twin brothers are referred to admiringly as “the untouchables” and “Cape Town’s Kray The Staggies are role models to an estimated […]
The Eastern Transvaal wants to form a regional economic=20 bloc with Swaziland and southern Mozambique, reports Justin=20 The Eastern Transvaal has announced it intends spearheading=20 the creation of a unified regional economic bloc, which=20 will include Swaziland and the southern provinces of=20 Formally announcing the initiative during the opening of=20 the first ordinary sitting of […]
Justin Pearce While Dr Allan Boesak was making headlines daily in South Africa with allegations of corruption, a United States corporation was blissfully unaware that its $50 000 donation to the Foundation for Peace and Justice (FPJ) was never used for the purposes for which it was intended. This week Kerry Traubert, a representative of […]
According to the results of a survey by the Institute for Democracy released this week, sixty percent of respondents said they would not allow a member of a political party they opposed to stage a political event in their Asked whether they would allow a member of a party they most opposed to teach history […]
An outcry from conservatives and threats to cut advertising forced the SABC ‘s hand. Justin Pearce reports The SABC has begun to beat a hasty retreat over its new- look SAfm station, as board chair Dr Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri this week tried to paper over the growing rifts in the Staffers accused the board of pandering […]
RUGBY: Jon Swift THERE is a lot of truth in the old adage that there is no=20 remarks column on the scoreboard. But, with only a four- point edge in the 104 points scored in two warm-up matches=20 against Western Province and Natal, the World Cup squad=20 have some serious thinking to do. There are […]
Kader Asmal, the Minister of Water Affairs, has entered the debate on the controversial plan for a steelmill at Langebaan. Eddie Koch and Rehana Rossouw report WATER Affairs Minister Kader Asmal wants a “total reassessment” of the impact that Iscor’s proposed steel mill will have on the ecology of the Langebaan lagoon — and will […]
CINEMA: Stanley Peskin IN Mike Leigh’s Naked, a 27-year-old man comes from=20 Manchester to London. Claiming to be fascinated with all=20 things peripatetic, Johnny (Daniel Thewlis) is unable to=20 find any meaning in or make any commitment to people, life,=20 or any religious belief. In a series of encounters with friends and strangers he=20 meets […]
CINEMA: Stanley Peskin HOLLYWOOD has enshrined famous composers in romantic=20 titles: Chopin in Song to Remember; Brahms and Schumann in=20 Song of Love; Liszt in Song Without End and now Beethoven=20 in Immortal Beloved. But perhaps the chief influences on=20 writer/director Bernard Rose are Peter Shaffer and Milos=20 Forman, whose film about Mozart was called […]
Rehana Rossouw DRUG addicts and dirty needles go together like love and marriage used to in the old lyrics but, in Cape Town, where drugs are smoked rather than mainlined, a zealous doctor is using (clean) needles to cure addicts of their curse. In his comfortable Rondebosch acupuncture clinic, Dr Won H Lee launches passionately […]
Rehana Rossouw Do-it-yourself policing is spreading across the Cape Peninsula as communities organise themselves to do the tasks their understaffed police stations cannot. The Mitchell’s Plain Neighbourhood Watch has 10 units in the sprawling dormitory town, with membership currently at 4 000 and climbing steadily. Its 400 active members patrol neighbourhoods in Mitchell’s Plain every […]
RUGBY: Luke Alfred THE hoary question of how the Highveld altitude affects=20 visiting rugby teams has never been more squarely in the=20 frame, particularly with the arrival of 15 World Cup squads=20 The results of sides playing Transvaal in this year’s Super=20 10 appear to contradict the truism that “visitors fade in=20 the second half”, […]
A new book, Share Analysis and Company Forecasting: How to=20 Make Money on the JSE by Weekly Mail & Guardian financial=20 journalist Jacques Magliolo aims to demystify the=20 Johannesburg Stock Exchange for the investor and to outline=20 how analysts assess companies. Areas covered include: understanding the JSE; how to read=20 share price pages; outlining shareholders’ […]
CINEMA: Stanley Peskin PATRICE CHEREAU’S Queen Margot begins with a wedding and=20 ends with a coronation. In between there is a lengthy and=20 operatic treatment of religious strife and the fall of a=20 If Wagner — Chereau staged The Ring at Bayreuth in the=20 1970s — and Visconti come to mind, the sources of the […]
Native tongue Bafana Khumalo WHY do these things happen to me? I must be cursed. Of all the billions of people in the world, I am the only one who will encounter an alien and the alien will not say anything profound like “take me to your leader”. To other people, yes, he will say […]
Nelson Mandela’s Budget speech last week was co-written by a dozen white female secretaries in Cape Town, a group of female squatters in Gauteng, and some coloured professionals in the Cape. And they didn’t even know it. Call it Rule by Focus Group. The impact of Clinton pollster Stanley Greenberg in the last election has […]
THEATRE: Guy Willoughby THE honeymoon is over, and a year down the line all of us=20 voters — the slapgatte as well as the sentient — should=20 start subjecting the new political order to sharp scrutiny.=20 That’s the premise of You ANC Nothing Yet, Pieter-Dirk Uys’=20 fine new revue at Cape Town’s Dock Road Theatre, […]
A SERIES of spats between officials of the Northern and Eastern Transvaal governments over who has the right to administer the Bushbuckridge area, a tract of land that straddles the two provinces, could escalate into a mini- border war involving two strong ANC regions. The premiers of each province agreed last year that the territory […]
Gaye Davis SPAIN’s counter-trade proposals if South Africa gave it the contract to supply four corvettes amounted to a “rand for rand deal” but would first have to be closely scrutinised by cabinet, Deputy Defence Minister Ronnie Kasrils said this week. In terms of the offer, South Africa would be able to pick counter-trade proposals […]
THE quota of elephants to be culled in the Kruger National Park this year will be cut by half and only “humane” methods will be used to kill them. This was announced by the National Parks Board yesterday after a marathon debate was held in Johannesburg between conservationists and animal rights groups over the controversial […]
South Africa’s arms industry will be discussed in Parliament next week. Armscor spokesman Krish Naidoo looks at the industry’s options IN the hope of reaping a peace dividend, the form, composition, and even the need for an indigenous arms industry has predictably come under public scrutiny. Some 800 companies make up the defence industry in […]
Jacques Magliolo The Board of Executive Corporation (BOECorp) has once again proved to investors that it is a financial force to be taken seriously. In the first six months of its present fiscal year, the company has more than satisfied its shareholders, producing a 94,4 percent annualised increase in attributable income. Other annualised figures are […]
Anne Eveleth hit the deck with hundreds of others as bullets flew at Umlazi’s King Zwelithini Stadium on Monday The deadly crackle of gunfire punctured the air as tens of thousands of African National Congress and Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) supporters thronged the stands of Umlazi’s King Zwelithini Stadium for a Cosatu […]
Gerald Combrinck TO THE average man, this Sunday’s derby between Cape Town Spurs and Hellenic will be just another game, but to the soccer die-hards of the Cape the game is more important than the Milan derby at San Siro, or the London one between Tottenham Hotspur and Arsenal. Be it on the field or […]
Gaye Davis SOUTH Africa’s new status as not only a democracy, but one where women have significant representation, has not come about without cost. The influx of women into Parliament has drained the women’s movement of some of its dynamos. Speaker Frene Ginwala identified the problem in her keynote address to a conference on Gender […]
THERE is something both sad and courageous about Bert’s Buskers, a Johannesburg skiffle band that contains six of the oldest musicians in the country. Sad because, in the case of their eldest member, 81-year-old spoon-player Gunner Burns, time is getting on; courageous because, despite their age — the average is seventysomething — their capacity for […]
THEATRE: Di Mannie WHAT is the very best treatment that can be given to someone suffering from Aids or terminal cancer? Without a doubt, it is the support and concern of a loving family. This is the message that shines through loud and clear in the tender, humorous Moira Blumenthal production of Two Weeks with […]
NELSON Mandela interceded on behalf of Dr Allan Boesak which had been ripped off in the Indonesia bank loan bungle
Foreign affairs’ plans for the allocation of its budget took a bashing from MPs in Parliament, writes Gaye Davis MPs grilled Foreign Affairs Director General Rusty Evans this week, asking why his department’s R1,13-billion budget did not reflect South Africa’s new foreign policy goals. Figures presented by Evans to Parliament’s portfolio committee on foreign affairs […]
An agreement has been signed which allows banks to enter the inner stockbrokers’ circle. Jacques Magliolo reports on this and other changes at the stock exchange Chaos was averted at the Johannesburg Stock Exchange last month, but not completely eliminated. The JSE and the Council of South African Banks (Cosab) reached an agreement to provide […]
A programme focused on illegal immigrants won an Artes award for investigative journalism this week for Weekly Mail Television producer Harriet Gavshon, and Nicolaas Hofmeyr, who directed the episode. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday was flighted in the Ordinary People series. The programme showed police raids in restaurants and hotels; the deportation of an illegal immigrant; and, […]