Staff Reporter

Humour, an alert mind, sociability and a shrewd sense of timing. These were some of Joe Slovo’s unique personal qualities, writes Jeremy Cronin JOE SLOVO, a young and impoverished immigrant from Lithuania, joined the Communist Party of South Africa at the age of 16. For the next 52 years he was to remain a dedicated […]

Mduduzi ka Harvey CRACKS are starting to show in the fragile East Rand peace as tensions grow between Thokoza residents, self-defence unit members and the newly formed Reservist Unit because of allegations that some reservists are undisciplined, trigger happy, out of control and unaccountable to the police. The unit, which was formed before the elections, […]

Joe Slovo was the man who brokered the agreement which lead to majority rule. Jonathan Steele pays tribute to to a principled persuader JOE SLOVO had the good fortune to see the promised land. After living in exile for many years, and after the South African Communist Party was unbanned, he helped majority rule come […]

Critical Comsumer Pat Sidley AN old gag asks why dogs lick themselves. The answer: “So they can get rid of the taste of Epol.” This month, Weekly Mail & Gardian pet lovers may have noticed a lot of dog- licking. Epol Tender Chunks, a product which is cereal-based and beef-flavoured, has appeared in several packets […]

The legal profession, viewed with scepticism by the public, is in need of transformation, reports Dennis Davis WHILE 1994 brought about a legal revolution, the legal profession showed itself ill-prepared for these momentous changes. By the end of the year, numerous constitutional judgments had been delivered by the supreme court and, with few exceptions, the […]

Being an ambassador now involves more than just holding one’s drink and making social chit chat, so perhaps we aught to select with more care, argues Peter Vale THERE has to be a better way to pick our ambassadors. Aside from the fumble over Allan Boesak, in the past month there have been two dropped […]

Jan Taljaard: Pretoria SELDOM shy of a good idea, the die-hard leader of the Boerestaat Party, Robert van Tonder, has established the right-wing’s own reconstruction and development programme. It is unlikely that minister Jay Naidoo will ever be part of this RDP, even though the somewhat idiosyncratic Van Tonder is a businessman of no small […]

TELEVISION: Stanley Peskin ONE thing that every foreigner knows about the English is that Englishwomen write the best detective stories of all. Now it can unequivocally be stated that an Englishwoman called Jennifer Saunders has written and performed in the funniest comedy series that has appeared on television monitors in years. Absolutely Fabulous is just […]

A unique scheme allows workers to become co-owners of the farm they once only laboured on, reports Gaye Davis LIKE his father before him, Herklaas Botha (26) started working the land just as soon as he was old enough. But it was always someone else’s land. When he arrived at Whitehall Farm, near Grabouw, six […]

Adriaan Vlok, former minister of law and order, pays tribute to an old foe I WANT to express my sincere condolence to the Slovo family and friends. He was a prominent, valuable and influential member of the ANC/South African Communist Party and he will be sorely missed by them. From an ideological point of view, […]

Alternative clubs have always formed the mainstay of Cape Town’s nightlife. Now they’re under threat from more commercial ventures, reports Malu van Leeuwen For years alternative club The Playground seemed as permanent a fixture in Cape Town as Table Mountain. Having outlasted reports of racism and the inevitable drug raid, it seems ironic that the […]

We’re a straightforward race, says Maori actress Rena Owen of her hard-hitting role in Once Were Warriors. She took time off to sip wine beneath Table Mountain with William Pretorius CAPE TOWN isn’t an ideal place for an interview. One would rather sip wine, look at Table Mountain and chat, especially as it’s Maori actress […]

Native tongue Bafana Khumalo IT’S gone. It’s no more. The doors are boarded up and all the windows covered by huge steel shutters. There is silence. This is a sad day for me and I hope that my sadness makes me human in your eyes. The source of my sorrow is the demise of a […]

GOLF: Jon Swift THERE was something like an aura of invincibility about the way Ernie Els strode to victory in the Bell’s Cup at Fancourt last weekend. It is the same invisible — yet recognisable — mantle of power which used to surround Gary Player on the South African circuit. Player, like Els, got his […]

Basketball is gaining popularity in South Africa, but in Zaire it has long been the most popular game BASKETBALL: Julian Drew IF YOU had switched on the television and watched the recorded highlights of the recent African women’s basketball final between Zaire and Senegal, you could have been forgiven for thinking the game had taken […]

A Peruvian bus trip demonstrates to Old Mutual economist Terence Moll just how ineffectual government economic controls can be ACROSS the valley, lights loomed in the desert night and a subdued murmur ran through the bus. The large Peruvian woman in front of me hitched her seat forward and I stretched for the first time […]

Media and Marketing Clive Simpkins THE sanctions era is over; the “anything-goes-in-computing” mentality should be over too and responsible marketers of personal computers in South Africa should hasten to appoint an ombudsman for their poorly imaged industry. Given the burgeoning need for personal computers among students, business people and small office, home office (Soho) users, […]

IT is ironic to see those who for so long vilified Joe Slovo turn him into something of a new South African saint. He wasn’t. If anything he was a down-to-earth, unpretentious, though quite remarkable, man. Many of his exceptional qualities have been cited in the past few days, but there are two which deserve […]

Steuart Wright in East London THE East Griqualand town of Matatiele was under siege this week as local businessmen retaliated against a consumer boycott by blocking outside traders from selling to boycotters. The businessmen, hard hit by a five-day consumer boycott which has cost the town more than R6-million, blocked three roads to the town […]

Shadley Nash Two youths from Sterkstroom are in hospital with bullet wounds after an irate resident shot them for stealing fruit from the trees in his yard. The bullet fired by the unnamed resident first passed through 14-year-old Patrick Zolani before lodging in the body of his friend, Willem Pretorius, also 14. Police said a […]

In an attempt to retain some power the National Party will probably reject the winner-takes-all form of democracy, argues Anton Harber NATIONAL PARTY leader FW de Klerk is likely to make proposals next week for partial, watered-down powersharing after the 1999 general election. Party insiders say that De Klerk will use the NP’s federal congress […]

CRICKET: Luke Alfred SEEKING someone to head the Plascon Cricket Academy, the United Cricket Board could hardly have chosen better than Clive Rice. Given that Rice’s 24 years at the top were bolstered by a mean streak second to none, it seemed logical to ask him if the belligerence which characterised his career wasn’t perhaps […]

The KwaZulu/Natal government is under severe strain, with tensions between IFP and ANC leaders reflected on the ground in the rising death toll. Farouk Chothia reports THE climbing death toll in kwaZulu/Natal comes against the backdrop of severe tensions in the provincial government between the Inkatha Freedom Party and ANC leaderships. The Human Rights Committee […]

Marthinus van Schalkwyk THE forthcoming federal congress of the National Party symbolises a party which must accept important challenges to maintain its indispensible role in South African politics. It is a party which — after more than 40 years – – has, for the first time, had to undergo the traumatic experience of losing power. […]

CINEMA: Shaun de Waal DOMINIC SENA’S film Kalifornia, which is a few years old now, was not a big hit in Britain or America. We may never have seen it on the big screen here had it not been for Brad Pitt’s recent success, or the ascendance of Juliette Lewis in films like Natural Born […]

Joe Modise’s attempt to gain cabinet approval for four new corvettes will not be plain sailing, reports Stefaans Brummer DEFENCE Minister Joe Modise is experiencing opposition from the ranks of ANC cabinet colleagues in his quest to buy the navy four new patrol corvettes — at a cost roughly equal to the R2,5-billion Reconstruction and […]

AMID all the gloom of Department of Education and Training matric results, there were some schools that shone with excellent results. A total of 34 DET schools had 100 percent pass rates. Of these, 20 were in kwaZulu/Natal. These 34 tops schools are: KwaZulu/Natal Buhlebethu School Domino Servite High School Drakensberg High School Enzamweni Secondary […]

With South African artists now participating in most major international festivals and our own Johannesburg Biennale on the horizon, Ivor Powell asks: how good are we really? DURING the years when South Africans were banned from the big world party, we kept ourselves going on a distinctly unhealthy cultural diet. Its substance was our own […]

Even the experts differ on the nuances of cricket, but explaining the game to the uninitiated is a difficult task CRICKET: Jon Swift IT was, in the light of retrospect, a debate that should neither have been contemplated nor entered into in the first place. Attempting to unravel the mysteries of the game of cricket […]

Mapula Sibanda THE 330 guns handed in during the Gun-Free South Africa Campaign represent a drop in the ocean in relation to the 3,25-million arms owned by South Africans. According to South African Police Services representative Major Sally de Beer, almost two million South Africans are registered licence holders, some owning more than one gun. […]

Vuyo Mvoko PUBLIC service workers took to the streets of Pretoria this week, giving the government a sharp reminder that the potentially explosive wage dispute in the sector is still on the boil. And the dispute is causing mounting embarrassment for Cosatu’s National Education, Health and Allied Workers’ Union (Nehawu), whose continued attempts to reach […]

Dear Andrew, WOULD it be presumptious to assume that along with the pain there was a touch of relief when you found that you’d been dropped for the third Test? Given your recent run of poor form and the fact that having a bat between your hands seems to turn you into a player who […]