Staff Reporter

Native tongue Bafana Khumalo ‘MY name is Keith, I am 25 years old.” The young black man hesitated for a while, took a sip from the styrofoam cup filled with a dark liquid in his hand, which was shaking slightly. He looked at the group of people dressed in hand-printed clothing around him and wondered […]

It’s time for South Africans to move beyond the furore over Allan Boesak’s Geneva posting, writes Peter Vale. This week’s report by the Commission for Global Governance highlights the real international challenges facing the country OUR Global Neighbourhood, the report released in Cape Town this week by Swedish Prime Minister Ingvar Carlsson and Sonny Ramphal, […]

Jacques Magliolo Newly acquired Billiton International made its debut in mining and financial giant Gencor’s first interim results. And, what an impressive start to its association it was. Billiton’s turnover, excluding associates and investments, amounted to US$1 074-million (R3 802- million) for the six months to end-December. Profit from operating companies (after depreciation) amounted to […]

Marketing Clive Simpkins IF South Africa is serious about hosting the World Cup and, more distantly, the 2004 Olympics, we’re going to have to rectify accommodation and infrastructure deficiencies. If not, our marketability as a big-event venue is at stake. I was in Cape Town for the opening of parliament. Weeks ahead, there was virtually […]

The Markets Jacques Magliolo Does anyone actually know what is going on out there? The markets are becoming more confusing and complex by the day. Investors have to keep track of a vast amount of changing Johannesburg Stock Exchange and company law regulations, market movement, fundamental issues as well as the factors which affect these. […]

Thousands of Western Cape pupils are the victims of the on-again off-again crisis in the Education Department, reports Justin Pearce SOME 6 000 Western Cape pupils remained without school accommodation this week as relations between the Western Cape Education Department and the National Education Co- ordinating Committee (NECC) broke down again in the aftermath of […]

Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi resorted to the politics of tantrums this week when he led a walkout from parliament. But more important than criticising this return to his pre-election ways is to understand why he is doing it and President Nelson Mandela’s somewhat limited options in dealing with it. The immediate concerns that lay behind the […]

Shadley Nash EZEKIEL MSIZI cast his steely gaze over the paddock where a dozen or more cows were being milked with hi-tech electronic equipment. “We want to come home. The white farmers’ time is up,” he said. Msizi’s impatience signals growing discontent in the ranks of the Mfengu community over the fact that they are […]

CINEMA: Stanley Peskin WRITTEN and directed by Tim Robbins, Bob Roberts (1992) has more than a passing resemblance to Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane (1941), as well as to a number of films by Robert Altman, notably Nashville (1975) and The Player (1992), in which Robbins himself played a corrupt filmmaker. Originally a sketch for Saturday […]

The Truth Commission Bill has slowed down in committee over the issue of secrecy in amnesty hearings. The parliamentary justice committee is unlikely to accept the cabinet agreement that those applying for amnesty should be free to do so in camera, and so the Bill will probably go back to the executive. While this issue […]

Is Chris Stals about to scrap the financial rand? Jacques Magliolo Looks into the rumours A statement by Reserve Bank governor Chris Stals this week fuelled rumours that the financial rand would be scrapped within weeks. However, according to a number of economists and analysts, the speculation seems optimistic. The finrand was introduced by the […]

The Seventies smash hit Saturday Night Fever first shot John Travolta to stardom. Now he’s made his comeback, receiving an Oscar nomination for his role in Pulp Fiction. Nik Cohn, the creator of Fever, met him in New York THE first time that I didn’t meet John Travolta was in Brooklyn. It was 1976, and […]

Reg Rumney and Simon Segal report on the implications of this week’s bank rate rise How high is too high? After this week’s general rise in interest rates South Africa’s real — that is adjusted for inflation — prime rate is now 7,4 percent. The prime rate is the rate banks charge their best customers. […]

Craig Williamson has revealed that South African security police carried out a London bombing raid. But he hasn’t told the whole story, say former colleagues. Stefaans Brummer reports ONE-TIME spy Craig Williamson’s revelations about the March 1982 bombing of the ANC offices in London do not go farenough, former police Security Branch colleagues say. They […]

Inge Ruigrok THE Greater Johannesburg TMC this week granted welfare organisations a reprieve until June from the death blow of having to pay full municipal rates on their properties. The move was in response to pressure from the “Lobby Against Rates” — a delegation of Gauteng-based welfare organisations — and took the form of an […]

Stefaans Brummer THE all-pervasive influence of South Africa’s securocrat chiefs in the mid-1980s — through an intricate web of covert propaganda projects — has been revealed in a classified State Security Council document released by former spy Craig Williamson. The 1984 document audits “strategic communication” (stratcom) projects run by the police, the military and the […]

Farouk Chothia KENYAN mediator Professor Washington Okumo said this week in an interview from Maputo that he had expected international mediation to take place in the aftermath of the April election in line with an agreement between the three major political parties days before the poll. Okumo brokered the agreement that saw the IFP enter […]

CINEMA: William Pretorius IN Disclosure, the happily married Tom Sanders (Michael Douglas) is sexually harrassed by his new boss, Meredith Johnson (Demi Moore), an old flame who is now vice- president of a hi-tech firm which manufactures virtual reality systems. There’s an immediate credibility gap here. Who on earth would want to harass Douglas, one […]

THEATRE: Justin Pearce ART imitates life, life imitates art, and theatre imitates cinema ’cause movies are a whole lot more successful than plays … No, no, foul, unfair! It’s tempting to speculate that Ian Fraser’s venture into the world of vampirism, Story of an African Vampire, at the Pieter Roos Theatre at the Civic, is […]

Marius Schoon plans to lay charges against Craig Williamson for the murder of his wife and child, writes Mark Gevisser The conscience of white South Africa is a self-assured Standard Six pupil whose voice has just broken, who is soccer-mad, and who witnessed his mother and sister blown to smithereens when he was two years […]

Moveable Feast Marino Corazza FROM Benoni to Bedfordview, Florida to Ferndale, Swellendam to Sabi, cafes across the country are invested with same nostalgia. Their names refer to the places their owners emigrated from a long time ago — Mykonos, Apollo, Hellenic, Paphos, The Acropolis, like a travel brochure on Greece and the islands — while […]

Annie Mapoma MANAGEMENT at two of Johannesburg’s most popular flea markets, Rosebank and Bruma, are surveying their traders and intend taking serious measures against those who threaten the city’s flourishing flea market industry by overpricing. The issue was brought to light when customers complained they were being ripped-off by certain traders, especially on items like […]

ATHLETICS: Julian Drew WHEN Shadrack Hoff sliced more than five seconds off Matthews Temane’s eight-year-old national 5 000m record in Stellenbosch two weeks ago, it signalled the beginning of a new era for South African distance running. In the dark years of the apartheid inspired sports boycott distance running turned in on itself in this […]

SOCCER: Clinton Asary WHEN Clemens Westerhof took charge of Sundowns this season he predicted that the “Brazilians” would win the league this year. But it has been a far from satisfactory start for the “supercoach” who led Nigeria to the 1994 African Nations Cup, and the last 16 of the World Cup the same year. […]

Weekly Mail Reporters MOST of the 14 regions of the ANC’s Women’s League have condemned the recent decision of 11 members of the league’s National Executive Committee (NEC) to resign their posts without proper consultation. The league’s Northern Natal secretary, Nokwethemba Biyela, said 12 of the 14 regions had “stood up” at the NEC meeting […]

Making quick runs on the slow wickets in New Zealand is an art Gary Kirsten seems to have mastered CRICKET: Krish Mi’rams in New Zealand The pitches in New Zealand are notoriously slow but on Thursday the ground was completely soggy as the vital match between South Africa and the home team was rained off. […]

Life assurers are honing their strategies in order to capture the multi-billion rand funeral business, reports Jacques Magliolo How big is the funeral business? Big enough for the life assurers to fight tooth and nail for it. Financial Services Board long term insurance manager Oppie Opperman says: “In 1993 total premium received by the life […]

SAILING: Jonathan Spencer Jones THREE weeks into the third leg of the BOC Challenge single-handed around the world race and Christophe Auguin sailing Sceta Calberson has become the first of the entrants remaining in the fleet to round Cape Horn. Auguin, who days earlier had notched up a record 350,4 mile 24-hour run, passed about […]

Weekly Mail Reporter READY or not, Africus: The Johannesburg Biennale — South Africa’s debut on the global fine arts circuit — will be throwing open its doors to the public on Tuesday, February 28. With luck, buildings and roads will have been completed, a dignitary secured to make the opening speeches, and art works will […]

Apartheid policies turned the Transkei homeland into a disaster area which will take years to repair, writes Louise Flanagan IT’S underfunded, marginalised, demoralised, has little infrastructure or communications, and its services are collapsing. It’s one of apartheid’s worst legacies and it’s now the Eastern Cape’s biggest nightmare. It’s the former Transkei homeland. Since the April […]

Stanley Peskin DANCE Umbrella, now under the aegis of FNB Vita, is making its seventh appearance at the Wits Theatre. There will be an extended run of two and a half weeks, during which time the work of 115 choreographers will be featured. The emphasis will fall on different dance idioms in a contemporary style. […]

The Bartel Arts Trust is injecting life into the arts scene in Durban, writes Humphrey Tyler DURBAN’S Bartel Arts Centre hasn’t got a door on its harbourside headquarters yet — the builders haven’t finished the entrance and you have to jump over the foundations to get inside — but it started full tilt this week […]