Staff Reporter

Has the Big Top got smaller, or have we just got bigger? Mark Gevisser took a nostalgic trip to the circus `IT’S just not what it used to be,” said a man, an unimpressed toddler in the crook of each arm, as he left the tatty confines of the rather modest Little Top that is […]

The two men in charge of ministering the environment display two distinctly different styles, reports Eddie Koch WHEN cabinet ministers Kader Asmal and Dawie de Villiers were confronted by angry demonstrators outside a toxic waste site near Johannesburg earlier this year, their body language described two distinct styles of managing this country’s environment. De Villiers […]

The Markets Jacques Magliolo MARKET experts are more vague than usual in their predictions for economic activity and the Johannesburg Stock Exchange in 1995. “Depending on who you are talking to, you can get diametrically opposite viewpoints,” says one industrial analyst, adding that “maybe the holiday season has already hit them”. On industrial shares expert […]

Media and marketing Clive Simpkins ERSTWHILE marketers re-entering South Africa should be urged to consider an RDP focused and negotiated approach on their geographic location. Despite Eastern Cape Premier Raymond Mhlaba’s best efforts, Ford, who divested in 1985, has chosen not to reinvest in this, the second -largest region in the country. Not getting a […]

A secret memo to the cabinet promotes the `sensible’ operations at the Thor Chemicals toxic waste plant in Natal. Eddie Koch reports THE Department of Environment Affairs has sent a secret memorandum to the cabinet saying the Thor Chemicals toxic waste plant in Natal is doing “sound” work — though a commission set up by […]

CRICKET: Jon Swift THERE can be no doubting the petential matchwinning abilities of Richard Snell as a seam bowler. He is one of the few South Africans who can regularly produce the unplayable ball. Snell remains an enigma. At the heart of the South African one-day revival with four wickets for 37 runs off the […]

Kader Asmal, water affairs and forestry minister, sets out the formidable challenges facing the ANC THERE are two powerful messages that Bloemfontein can give the nation over the next week. First, the ANC conference can confirm that the ANC is the natural party of government; second, it can be demonstrated that all South Africans are […]

# Danceworks, Principia, Patrol — Steve Martland Band/Smith Quartet (Catalyst) The new-music label Catalyst has had far more misses than hits so far, but these three pieces by Steve Martland provide a very good introduction to his musical world, which treads a canny course along the borders of minimalism, rock and jazz. Like his teacher, […]

Native tongue Bafana Khumalo `TIS a season to be jolly. `Tis time for even an angry young black man who is fast becoming a cynical old fart to dispense with the vitriolic poison pen and embrace all of humanity with enthusiasm, in a spirit of peace and love. I am happy. So much so that […]

Mduduzi ka Harvey Members of the South African Police Intelligence Unit had to try twice before managing to bomb Khotso House in central Johannesburg, headquarters of the South African Council of Churches, in 1988. Affidavits by former Intelligence Unit members in the possession of the Weekly Mail & Guardian tell a story of careful planning, […]

Tokyo Sexwale, Gauteng premier, argues that the ANC must face up to the challenge of power OPENING the inaugural meeting of the South African Native National Congress (later the ANC) in 1912, congressman Pixley ka Seme said: “We are gathered here today to discuss a thing which my colleagues and I have decided to place […]

Jeremy Cronin, SACP leader,writes that the ANC cannot sit back and enjoy its honeymoon AT least three complex dynamics will be at play in the ANC’s conference. The first, the leadership issue has, rather tediously, been the focus of considerable media attention. Emerging out of three decades of illegality, the ANC has had to develop […]

THEATRE: Robert Greig Janice Honeyman’s Jukebox Jol (at the Civic Theatre, Johannesburg) reflects more than it says. It reflects the existence of much musical talent and creative vigour but little structure or sense. Christmas is, of course, the season of licensed blandness, and this one concludes a year noticeable for its theatrical dullness. The demise […]

The only method of transaction that makes sense in South Africa is the introduction of Smart cards, reports Jacques Magliolo THE 1990s has been called the electronic age by computer experts, while economists and politicians alike have excitedly hailed the coming of the global village. Yet as much as 80 percent of all South African […]

A five-storey-high screen and 13 000 watt speakers are just part of the attraction of Cape Town’s new Imax cinema. Peter Frost reports AFRICA’S first Imax cinema — hyped as “much more than movies”, with its 15m by 22m screen — opened in Cape Town this week, launched by visiting actor James Earl Jones. The […]

Farouk Chothia: Durban KWAZULU/NATAL chiefs have received an increased stipend since April in what appears to be a move on the Inkatha Freedom Party’s part to retain their loyalty in the post- election era, it emerged this week. This disclosure comes amid further signs that Zulu King Goodwill Zwelithini is battling to prise chiefs — […]

RUGBY: Jon Swift IT would be well for all concerned to take careful note of the cryptic comment made by national rugby coach Kitch Christie at the end of the tour of Scotland, Wales and Ireland. “We have the basis of the players for the World Cup,” was the way the quietly-spoken Christie laid it […]

Critical Consumer Pat Sidley MOST South African consumers had a magnificent year. The disenfranchised majority acquired and used that precious commodity — a vote — and got the government they wanted. This government in turn often proved more responsive to consumer needs than the last lot. Its interventions ranged from keeping the maize price at […]

CINEMA: Stanley Peskin THERE is little reason to doubt that Orlando (the pan- historical figure who serves Queen Elizabeth, changes sex in Constantinople and takes more than 300 years to write a poem) represents Virginia Woolf’s friend and lover, Vita Sackville-West, who, in Woolf’s words, inspired “the lusts of the flesh and the lure of […]

Nombuyiselo Maloyi YOU can’t miss the Freedom Square RDP and Healing Centre, launched on Saturday. Fifty shipping containers painted in all the colours of the new South Africa flag now occupy the field in Kliptown, near Soweto, where the Freedom Charter was drafted 49 years ago. The traders’ containers and corrugated iron units were donated […]

Judge Pierre Olivier rejected a seven-year sentence for a rapist because the victim `suffered no serious injury’. Gaye Davis reports AS Mr Justice Pierre Olivier was being interviewed for an Appeal Court post this week, it emerged that a rapist whose jail sentence was set aside in a controversial decision by the judge has been […]

While generally a delight, last weekend’s battle of the choirs exhibited the same mistakes that have been made for the last 17 years, argues Vuyo Mvoko LIKE the Muslim community’s yearly pilgrimage to Mecca, the annual finals of the Old Mutual National Choir Festival at the Standard Bank Arena have proved to be a major […]

Tension between the ANC-in-government and the ANC-outside- government must be resolved at next weekend’s national conference, reports Gaye Davis REGIONAL congresses of the ANC have sent the movement’s leadership a strong signal in the run-up to its national conference this month: members elected to government should not be charged with running the organisation. Few ANC […]

Native tongue Bafana Khumalo I HATE them all. My parents, my friends, my schoolteachers and all the other scum who taught me that going to school is a two-year guarantee ticket out of the ghetto. You have gathered that this column is going to be one of those do-it-yourself psychotherapy sessions, haven’t you? “Why do […]

Manu Dibango’s new album offers a crash course in contemporary African music, writes Steve Gordon WAKAFRIKA is a Manu Dibango opus — an album of African classics by one of Africa’s classics. Wakafrika? Vuka Afrika! This is a collection of anthems African, Africanised and Africaine. Recorded during 1993, the album was a 60th birthday project […]

Weekly Mail & Guardian Reporter A MAN identified as an ANC marshal was sentenced in the Grahamstown Supreme Court this week to 12 years’ imprisonment for participating in the murder of a Pan Africanist Congress member. Johnson Njinana (20) was sentenced to 12 years’ imprisonment for the murder of Patrick Buyisile Malawana (25) in Middelburg […]

Shadley Nash: Port Elizabeth THE Cradock community, still reeling from shock at recent revelations that three Port Elizabeth civic leaders were brutally murdered by the security forces, believe the bodies may be buried at the site of their torture and murder. A privately-owned holiday farm now stands where the Pebco Three were allegedly tortured and […]

The first opportunity to introduce substantial change to the Appellate Court presented itself this week as the Judicial Service Commission interviewed candidates for three vacancies in that decrepit institution. What do we find? That all the candidates are white males, and at least two are the subject of some considerable controversy. Mr Justice Kees van […]

Some R14,5-million of the kwaZulu/Natal budget for school library books is unaccounted for, reports Ann Eveleth AS much as R14,5-million earmarked for the purchase of school library books in kwaZulu/Natal is unaccounted for, prompting an official investigation by the provincial government. The Weekly Mail & Guardian has established that the province’s new library director, Sally […]

GOLF: Jon Swift WATCHING Nick Faldo smile is both a precious and rare occasion. So inwardly focussed is the man, so high the standards he sets himself, that this normal and outward sign of humanity has, like so many of the inconsistencies of his game, been ruled out of his professional persona. Faldo is a […]

Trade and Industry Minister Trevor Manuel is pushing hard for better access for South African exports. Reg Rumney reports TRADE and Industry Minister Trevor Manuel, just returned from Brussels, says he is hopeful that South Africa will get preferential treatment for exports in terms of the Lome convention. Manuel was in Europe doing what he […]

Critical Consumer Pat Sidley CONSUMERS may have noticed a campaign directed at making them “more secure” at automatic teller machines (ATMs). The campaign is cunningly framed to make consumers believe that all the ATM fraud, theft and related crime in general is the consumers’ own fault. Now that the banks are kindly giving its consumers […]