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 […]

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 […]

CLASSICAL MUSIC: Coenraad Visser CONCERTOS for piano and violin by Mozart had mixed success in the first two concerts of the National Symphony Orchestra conducted by visiting British conductor Meredith Davies. Francois du Toit, standing in at short notice for Tessa Uys, gave a carefully considered reading of the composer’s A Major Piano Concerto. As […]

Jacques Magliolo IN an era of increasing “transparency” it is curious that Gencor chairman Brian Gilbertson has not held a press conference to answer questions about the sudden dismissal of senior executive Trevor Rees after allegations that he had tried to blackmail Gencor. The matters raised in the press already, after all, could seriously affect […]

A young woman is busy teaching hardened police about the importance of early-age fixations in serial killers. Jan Taljaard reports WHEN in 1982 John Duffy embarked on a raping and killing spree that would eventually earn him the name of Britain’s Railway Ripper, initial investigations threw up a possible 5000 suspects. Two years, 18 rapes […]

THEATRE: Guy Willoughby WHAT can one say about a play that tells two interrelated stories, separated by nearly 200 years, that take place simultaneously in the same room? Welcome to the casually unusual world of Tom Stoppard, a world whose oddity comes uneasily to resemble the one you and I live in. Stoppard has long […]

Black pupils near Durban take their struggle into an Indian township. Farouk Chothia reports ONGOING violence at a black school in Amaoti, near Durban, spilled over into the adjacent Indian township of Phoenix this week with Indian pupils being attacked by black pupils. A large group of pupils from Amaoti’s Amandlethu Secondary School, some armed […]

Justin Pearce SOUTH AFRICA’S non-govermental organisation (NGO) community is reeling from the shockwaves of the allegations of theft and fraud made against Dr Allan Boesak’s Foundation for Peace and Justice (FPJ). Last week’s revelations of the scale on which money disappeared undetected from the FPJ have prompted NGO trustees to re-examine their roles and duties […]

Former police commander Eugene de Kock’s trial next week promises a taste of things to come, reports Stefaans Brummer TOP police officers and politicians will be watching closely when Eugene Alexander de Kock goes on trial in Pretoria on Monday. A number of them have been implicated in the “Third Force” misdeeds for which the […]

Illegal occupants defiantly laid claim to vacant homes in a Lenasia suburb this week. Mapula Sibanda spoke to them OVERGROWN shrubs surrounding the houses testified to desertion, but there were newspapers pasted up to serve as curtains and white crosses marked on the windows to show that people were living there. On Wednesday afternoon, this […]

Eddie Koch visits a northern Cape army base with land minister Derek Hanekom THE owner of a game lodge in Namibia which goes under the name “Intu Afrika”, called up the Schmidtsdrift army base last year, and asked to borrow some bushmen who could perform their ancient traditions for tourists on his farm. Schmidtsdrift army […]

Moveable Feast Barbara Ludman SHIMON’S Bistro and Arlecchino have both found the perfect spot for a sidewalk cafe — away from the petrol fumes and panhandlers but nonetheless out under the stars — in Tyrwhitt Mall in Rosebank. They’re separated by four small shops and flanked by a bandstand, non-working fountains and planters. Along, around […]

Gaye Davis CONTINUING unhappiness in party ranks over the National Party’s blurred identity and lack of direction are expected to come to a head at its caucus meeting in Stellenbosch tomorrow. NP sources discounted the possibility of a split but indicated NP leader FW de Klerk would face a challenge from a “new right” coalescing […]

CRICKET: Jon Swift ONE of the oldest maxims in cricket, whether it be the one-day pyjama game or the more serious stuff of five-day tests, is this: you have to get the runs on the board to have any chance of succeeding. It is a truism which was rubbed into the noses of the South […]

Relics of the past or living legends? Shaun de Waal explains why The Rolling Stones are still exciting 30 years into their career `BLAME it on the Stones,” sang Kris Kristofferson in 1970, mocking the “Mr Modern Middle Class” who saw in The Rolling Stones the personification of evil and all that was corrupting of […]

Shadley Nash in Port Elizabeth A reward has been offered for the return of Port Alfred’s mayoral solid silver chain of office, valued at R10 000. Former taxi driver Gordon Bavuma, recently elected as the chairperson of the Port Alfred Transitional Local Council, now has the dubious distinction of being the first “mayor” since the […]

CINEMA: William Pretorius SEX happens — but mainly outside America, to judge from the featherweight romantic comedy Only You and the Australian sex-pic Sirens, on circuit today. They’re both about sex, love and all that, but while the Australian film celebrates sexuality, American movies, it seems, are toning things down. The glimpse of Bruce Willis’ […]

BALLET: Stanley Peskin THE setting in Johann Strauss’ Die Fledermaus (1874) is Vienna and the river is undoubtedly the Danube, but although Ronald Hynd choreographs the famous waltz, the setting and river that come to mind in the quintessentially English Rosalinda (1978) — Pact Ballet’s first production of the year — are Mayfair and the […]

Thabo Mbeki walked the tightrope between the country’s first couple this week. Mark Gevisser reports PRESIDENT Nelson Mandela was so “fed up” with the ill- discipline and unaccountability of his estranged wife, Winnie Mandela, that he was resolved to drop her from the cabinet until persuaded otherwise by several ANC leaders, including Thabo Mbeki. At […]

There’s more to life than Forrest Gump would have us believe, say the people behind a new underground magazine. They spoke to William Pretorius MOST magazines would shudder at taking video nasties seriously, but there’s none of the usual moral gumpf to Mimizine’s assessment of Cannibal Holocaust, a gore fest from Italian director Ruggero Deodata. […]

Reg Rumney speaks to the Jayendra Naidoo, director of the National Economic, Development and Labour Council, which will be launched tomorrow. The very name of the National Economic Development and Labour Council portends one of its first problems. Quite simply, there are high expectations that this statutory successor to the National Economic Forum and the […]

More claims of hit squads have come from Albert Luthuli’s grandson, until recently a senior IFP military leader, write Enoch Mthembu and Eddie Koch DALUXOLO LUTHULI, Inkatha’s top para-military commander, has entered a state witness protection programme and made shock allegations about IFP hit squads. Luthuli, who described himself as chief-of-staff of the IFP’s “military […]

Perennial rivals Kaizer Chiefs and Orlando Pirates are heading for a Top 8 final clash, but their semifinal opponents have other ideas SOCCER: Clinton Asary IT is the ideal semifinal draw for a cup competition, the one soccer administrators and sponsors dream about, thus adding fuel to allegations that the draw for the BP Top […]

February is Black History Month in the United States — and, if you’re selling something, a time to put an `Afrocentric’ spin on your marketing. Tony Karon reports from New York THE road to Africa runs through the golden arches of McDonald’s. Or so one of their ads would have us believe: under an a […]

KARATE: Johann van Tonder SOUTH AFRICAN fighters smashed their way through the first All Africa Knockdown Karate tournament in Cape Town last weekend, taking all eight trophies. At the event, visiting Japanese officials awarded the very prestigious rank of Eighth Dan Black Belt to “the father of karate in South Africa”, Shihan Len Barnes, who […]

IF there were a contemporary South African equivalent to LA Law or thirtysomething, it might include the following scene: He (crusty judge and self-appointed custodian of traditional hierarchies): You live in Cape Town … and you have small children? She (perky young female lawyer up for a judgeship): I do … one who is five […]

THEATRE: Bafana Khumalo YOU Fool, How Can the Sky Fall? could be the beginning of a new trend in black theatre — or it could be a one-off. One hopes it is the former, signifying a new phase in post-apartheid theatre where playwrights move away from the hackneyed formulae of the past, in which a […]

Acording to the Washington-based Investor Responsibility Research Center (IRRC) there are signs that United States business and investor interest in South Africa is growing. A survey of 69 US pension funds and other institutional investors found that more than 50 percent were already investing in South Africa or were planning to invest there in the […]