Staff Reporter

Finance Week editor Alan Greenblo has left the magazine — or has he? Jacques Magliolo reports BUSINESS magazine Finance Week’s editor Alan Greenblo bid a lengthy, sad, farewell in the latest issue of the magazine, in what seemed the last chapter of a long battle for control of the independent financial publication. However, he was […]

Many South Africans are opting to send their children for a Christian education, but this does not mean the rod is spared at these schools, writes Gavin Evans WHEN Pastor Steve Maritz tells you that “if little Johnny needs a hiding, he’ll get one”, he wears the smile of a benign paterfamilias. This middle-aged founder […]

THEATRE: Peter Frost TALK to Pieter-Dirk Uys and the phrase “hard-on” keeps coming up. Not the pelvic kind, but a theatrical response performers should be provoking in traditionally flaccid South African audiences. His new show, Bambi Sings the FAK Songs, currently filling houses Upstairs at Elaine’s in Cape Town, does just that, going straight to […]

The man who exposed the `Verwoedian’ methods of Unisa’s education faculty now faces disciplinary action. Pat Sidley reports AFTER 25 years of editing and translating University of South Africa (Unisa) study guides, Sam van den Berg blew the whistle on the “morally outrageous” material the correspondence university was providing to education students. As a result, […]

The IBA is considering hundreds of applications for temporary community radio licences. Bruce Cohen looks at the colourful entries RADIO that will entertain the historically disadvantaged. Radio that will contribute to reconstruction, reconciliation, self-esteem, pride, peace and self-sustainability. Radio that will be non- racial, non-sexist and non-derogatory. Radio that will establish and promote a living […]

THEATRE: Robert Greig HYSTERIA is an impudent, sprawling, funny and splendidly perverse farce about the fantasies of Sigmund Freud. It turns the person whom WH Auden described as “a climate of opinion” into a bumbler floundering in the nets of his own theories. As with Tom and Viv, one may learn little about Freud or […]

Among the leading lights of the London Philharmonic Orchestra is South African Gina Beukes. She spoke to Coenraad Visser WHEN the London Philharmonic Orchestra takes the stage on its South African tour, a face familiar to South African audiences is at one of the front desks — Gina Beukes was recently appointed principal second violin […]

The health minister is on the campaign trail for her department, giving doctors a chance to harangue her in public. Pat Sidley reports A GATHERING in a huge auditorium at the Johannesburg Hospital last week probably marked the first time in South African history that health care professionals, many of them doctors, had a chance […]

Far-rightwingers are planning to hold their own poll in tandem with the local government elections. Jan Taljaard reports THE far-rightwing is planning its own separate elections to be held at the time of the local government elections in October this year. True to character, however, the different factions cannot agree on whether to participate in […]

Stefaans Brummer A CHARGE of theft is being investigated against Dirk Coetzee, the former Vlakplaas commander who exposed police hit squads, in what Coetzee believes is a campaign of revenge against him. Coetzee was informed on February 1 that Middelburg police were investigating a charge that he had stolen R6 000 from a man in […]

A brilliant Indian student was refused entry to medical school — an apparent victim of affirmative action. When she took legal action, she was admitted. Farouk Chothia reports from Durban A young Pinetown matriculant, refused entry to medical school despite getting six distinctions, has started a flood of court challenges to affirmative action. Karin Singh […]

Gavin Evans and Stefaans Brummer SOUTH african National Defence Force military intelligence is still interested in bugging its enemies, although these days it prefers to call them This much emerged from a “feeling out” session monitored by the Weekly Mail & Guardian, between a Wits student “spotted” by an SANDF talent scout, and a senior […]

The Democratic Party performs well in parliament but leader Tony Leon wants growth in support as well, writes Gaye Davis DEMOCRATIC Party leader Tony Leon says he was sounding a “wake-up call”, rather than a death-knell, by warning that the party’s future depended on its performance in local government elections. Leon told a public meeting […]

Jan Taljaard in Pretoria The rightwing has allegedly acquired up to 10 nuclear=20 devices that had somehow escaped the attention of the=20 International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Allegations that 16 instead of six nuclear devices were=20 made during South Africa’s nuclear weapons programme=20 were last week levelled against the Atomic Energy=20 Corporation’s chief executive Dr […]

Amid the scar tissue of District Six, a new museum is helping to heal its ravaged community. Tony Morphet reports THE buzz around the museums and galleries gets louder all the time. Like a beehive after a long winter, the political spring has suddenly brought a lot of fresh activity. New collections, exhibitions, policies, even […]

ATHLETICS: Julian Drew ON Saturday the country’s top middle distance athletes will do battle to secure a team berth from the remaining places still on offer for the world cross country championships in Durham, England on March 25. But while there may be a welcome respite in the chance to exchange the winter sport of […]

Being named Female Prospect of the Year is just the beginning for young sprinter Heide Seyerling ATHLETICS: Julian Drew THE organisers of the 1992 Engen Powerplus Summer Series faced something of a quandry when it came to the second meeting of the series to inaugurate the new synthetic track at Jan Smuts Stadium in East […]

Justin Pearce in Cape Town ASSASSINATIONS in squatter camps and high-handed=20 manoeuvrings by an Eastern Cape MEC: these two=20 occurrences in the Western Cape in the past week have=20 more in common than meets the eye. Both threaten the process of local government=20 transformation, but in a way that may not be obvious:=20 the National […]

The old laager mentality is raising its ugly head again=20 in the form of xenophobia. Eddie Koch and=20 Accadoga Chiledi report SOUTH Africa’s landscape is littered with bronze and=20 stone statues of ox-wagons drawn into a circle to=20 defend those on the inside from a marauding band on the=20 outside. There is no need to […]

Weekly Mail Reporter THE chief does not reign. He rules. He allocates land=20 to his subjects for a fee. He presides over a tribal=20 court to pass sentence on minor offenders. He decides=20 where schools can be built and where boreholes can be=20 The chief is the supreme ruler over his subjects: they=20 either submit […]

The Urban Foundation closed its doors on Tuesday=20 18 years after it was founded in response to the=20 Soweto uprising. It was a controversial organisation=20 but, writes chief executive Sam van Coller, it=20 changed the way we think — and work SHUTTING down the Urban Foundation, emptying the=20 offices, watching the staff disperse to other […]

Mapula Sibanda A BUS boycott seems to be the spark that set off last=20 week’s violence at Vaal Reef’s No 8 Shaft in which 12=20 people were killed and 36 admitted to hospital, three=20 with critical injuries; 62 miners were treated for=20 minor injuries and discharged.=20 The boycott started in September last year, after a=20 […]

A Zairean businessman has caused a storm=20 with his Berea-based communication network, reports=20 Annie Mapoma AN enterprising Zairean businessman has set up a=20 communication network in a Berea house to connect=20 expatriates to friends, family and businesses back=20 Zaireans are flocking to the offices of Full Business=20 Services, at 87 Honey Street, for fast, cheap=20 […]

Critical Consumer Pat Sidley A PROPOSED new health care system, one of the ANC’s key=20 election promises, is the topic of hot debate at the=20 moment almost everywhere that counts: within the ANC,=20 the government of national unity, parliament, various=20 think tanks on health policy, the Department of Health=20 and among all health care professionals. […]

Farouk Chothia TENSIONS surfaced between kwaZulu/Natal safety and=20 security MEC Celani Mtetwa and his colleagues in the=20 Inkatha Freedom Party over the planned graduation today=20 of about 500 recruits into the kwaZulu Police (KZP). Although he has a reputation as a hardliner, Mtetwa has=20 taken a softer line than IFP national parliamentarians=20 Velaphi Ndlovu and […]

Gavin Evans IT is one of those abiding South African ironies that a=20 man who was banned and house-arrested for supporting=20 independent trade unions should become the key player=20 in rewriting the country’s labour law. But in Halton Cheadle’s case, the story verges from the=20 familiar. There is no “it takes one to catch one”=20 […]

Fashionable and cool — or aids to spiritual enlightenment? Malu van Leeuwen investigates Capetonians’ penchant for tattoos `TATTOOS Get You Sex” boasts a T-shirt walking around Cape Town. It’s an old gimmick, using the promise of sex to market the product. But there’s life yet in the tired cliche — because whether it’s piercing or […]

For new National Commissioner of Police George Fivaz,=20 dealing with the past involves a retreat to the future.=20 He spoke to Mark Gevisser=20 IN private circles, George Fivaz likes to tell the=20 following story: when he was a young policeman and a=20 post in the Security Police was considered a sharp=20 career move, he applied […]

Reg Rumney looks at the latest row about how official inflation is measured Once again the official inflation figure supplied by the government’s Central Statistical Services has been called into question. Cosatu said this week a study by the union-aligned research group Naledi confirmed its suspicions that the official inflation figure is inaccurate. The CSS […]

Printers are making a stand against crippling rises in the price of paper, reports Bronwen Jones SOUTH African printers are lobbying government to remove tariffs and curb paper prices that have soared more than 60 percent in the past 12 months and are set to rise much further still. The Printing Industries Federation (Pifsa) has […]

THE spat over the passing out parade for 650 kwaZulu=20 Police trainees is a baptism of fire for new police=20 commissioner George Fivaz. There is far more to the=20 dispute than the question of whether a few men with=20 criminal records should be allowed to become policemen. It is now common knowledge that hit men […]

Weekly Mail Reporter ALMOST three quarters of the executives of the Top 100 companies listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange have no faith in the reconstruction and development programme, the ANC’s grand plan to put right the wrongs left by apartheid. This is the finding of the annual business environment survey conducted by Unisa’s Bureau […]