Staff Reporter

Hugh McLean of the Liberty Life Foundation, and treasurer of the Southern African Grantmakers’ Association writes on the funding crisis in NGOs. It was Mark Twain who said: “October. This is one of the peculiarly dangerous months to speculate stocks in. The others are July, January, September, April, November, May, March, June, December, August and […]

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 […]

SOCCER: Clinton Asary THE South African under-23 squad’s quest for a place in the finals of the All Africa Games continues this weekend when they visit the mountain kingdom of Lesotho, for the second leg of their second round encounter on Sunday. South Africa won the first leg 2-0, and our “Young Guns” look set […]

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 […]

THE withdrawal of sociologist Eddie Webster from the race for the post of vice-chancellor of Rhodes University has left a conservative as the only contender. To the dismay of Grahamstown progressive organisations and academics, Webster has chosen to stay at the University of the Witwatersrand. Academic sources said his work on proposed new labour legislation […]

Shadley Nash in Port Elizabeth South Africa’s judicial profession was still a divided and conservative one, said Cecil Somyalo, the country’s first attorney to be permanently appointed a judge in the Supreme Court. In an interview on following his appointment by President Nelson Mandela on Tuesday, Judge Somyalo said his appointment signalled a big break […]

Critical Consumer Pat Sidley This is a sad tale about a dog called Gatting, named by his owners, the O’Keefe family, in 1990 after cricketer Mike Gatting, who was supposed to be heading up a cricket tour. The O’Keefe family’s three young children were attached to the dog, a highly pedigreed labrador with an unfortunate […]

The finance minister and the Reserve Bank governor agree on discipline, so prepare to tighten your belts. Reg Rumney reports. Finance Minister Chris Liebenberg said this week that both fiscal and monetary policy were still not strict enough for sustainable growth. Later, Reserve Bank Governor Chris Stals, also speaking at the eighteenth Frankel Pollak Vinderine […]

Hugh Lewin, who spent seven years in the Sixties as a political prisoner in Pretoria, joined last weekend’s gathering of some 1 200 ex-political prisoners for a reunion on Robben Island IT IS a weekend of rituals. The ritual of resurrecting the ghosts, re-uniting them, dancing with them from lime quarry to cell-block, and (perhaps […]

Despite the collapse of USAfrica, the domestic airline business is not saturated, reports Andre van Zyl Paradoxically, the collapse of United States airline USAfrica has focused attention on the domestic airline business in South Africa. Is there enough room for everybody? A quick runaround of some of the local airlines suggested that, contrary to conventional […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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’ […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

Katz commission member Pierre du Toit argues that critics haven’t read the report SOUTH Africa is finding that tax reform within a real democracy is very different from the old days. Regardless of the Katz Commission’s specific terms, submissions came from a much wider representation of society and were much more fundamental than those received […]

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 […]

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. […]

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 […]