Staff Reporter

The Katz tax commission mostly makes sense, but some recommendations seem to have been hastily arrived at, reports Reg Rumney Most recommendations of the Katz tax commission were hailed by commentators this week — with some bothersome exceptions that pointed to hasty decisions and gave the impression of tinkering with the system. Under fire are […]

Terence Moll FORMER Reserve Bank governor Gerhard de Kock once severely criticised South African businessmen, calling them inept in controlling company spending and simply not able to understand fundamental economic principles. The highly respected governor is on record as having said: “At the start of an economic upswing, our businessmen spend as if boom times […]

TRADITIONAL leaders called for land restitution claims to be considered from 1652 instead of 1913 at the conference of the Congress of Traditional Leaders of South Africa in Midrand last weekend. Contralesa president Chief Phathekile Holomisa also expressed concern over the only-partial political freedom guaranteed traditional leaders in the interim constitution. “It denies chiefs their […]

Mapula Sibanda LIKE Martin Luther King, whose poster adorns his office wall, Jody Kollapen also has a dream, and his appointment this week as national director of Lawyers for Human Rights will afford him the luxury to realise it. Kollapen’s dream is to change the confrontational relationship between the police and human rights lawyers, building […]

A new health scheme favoured by the government is likely to prove hugely popular. Pat Sidley reports THE government is actively investigating a national health insurance plan which would, if implemented, revolutionise the country’s health system and provide the funds for basic health care to all citizens. Three options are under consideration. The Weekly Mail […]

Hardliners in the IFP are planning to quit government and strengthen their majority in kwaZulu/Natal, writes Farouk Chothia A SPECIAL Inkatha Freedom Party conference early next year will consider a plan by party hardliners to quit the government of national unity (GNU) and play the role of a Westminster-styled opposition party, IFP insiders revealed this […]

TELEVISION: Luke Alfred CHRIS DU PLESSIS is a former Vrye Weekblad journalist and now director of CCV-TV’s Thursday night amalgam of local culture, Not Quite Friday Night. It contains all sorts of things — local music, off-beat interviews, comedy sketches. Last week’s programme featured one of the more bizarre forms of local subculture: a koedoebokdrolverspoeg […]

Information on outlandish research conducted by a group of companies for the SADF is being revealed. By Eddie Koch and Derek Fleming A NETWORK of companies near Pretoria developed chemical warfare equipment for the South African Defence Force and also conducted secret experiments on animals to test high tech “dum dum” bullets and heat resistant […]

Moveable Feast Marino Corazza YOU are what you eat; we’re also what we drink. But what the statement really should say is: “We are what they want us to eat and drink.” Through the passage of time, we, the human race, went and lost it — the original tree of knowledge, the magic mushroom. Terence […]

A top-secret document discloses the names of African states that bought hi-tech eavesdropping equipment from Armscor, reports Eddie Koch ARMSCOR sold hi-tech “radio hopper” equipment to African states that enabled South African military intelligence officers to monitor sensitive diplomatic and military messages passed on by the governments of these countries. A top-secret document — which […]

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 […]

CRICKET: Jon Swift IT is of crucial interest that the national selectors are at last sticking to their much publicised “horses for courses” theory, one that has not meant much more than a throwaway line at times in the recent past. And equally of note is that the Man of the Match awards in both […]

Ironically, NGOs face their most serious crisis in the new South Africa. Paul Zille suggests scenarios for their survival IF there is one aspect of the development debate in South Africa about which there seems to be complete consensus, it is the importance of non-governmental organisations. Yet, ironically, NGOs today find themselves in the most […]

National Sorghum Breweries is looking to list on the stock exchange. Reg Rumney spoke to chief executive Professor Mohale Mahanyele BLACK-OWNED and black-run National Sorghum Breweries, which recently announced it is headed for the stock exchange, is no Jack the Giant Killer. So says NSB chairman and chief executive Mohale Mahanyele, despite competing head on […]

Cricket is now integrated in South Africa and the national team is taking on the best in the world, but in Lenasia they still support the Pakistan team CRICKET: Luke Alfred THOSE who attended the limited overs match between Pakistan and a Transvaal Invitation XI at the MR Varachia stadium in Lenasia last Thursday were […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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, […]

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 […]

CHILDREN’S THEATRE: Pat Sidley PLATFORM shoes are hazardous to the health at the best of times, and Janice Honeyman’s Aladdin (in China) proved the point one evening last week, when the empress fell off hers during a dance sequence. The mishap resulted in some ad libbing — and presumably a sore ankle. It was the […]

Jacques Magliolo WHEN Albert Einstein said that imagination was more important than knowledge, the South African assurance industry probably thought he was talking about them. The latest Financial Services Board statistics reveal shocking figures for 1993, heralding an industry-wide investigation by the LOA. In addition it highlights how assurers develop new imaginative schemes to sell […]

Rick Rubin’s American Recordings label kicks off its South African campaign with a loud, rude roar, writes Buddy Bradley YOU are a young man, only 31 years of age. Once you were fat and ugly. Then you dieted. Now you are merely large and hairy. But no matter. Nights, you can be seen in your […]

Military leaders usually know when to attack. Only the best of them know when to retreat. The SANDF waited too long before backing off this week from its attempt to seek judicial review of the Cameron Commission’s decision to release certain sensitive documents to the public. This newspaper had already published an earlier version of […]

Joe Modise and Ronnie Kasrils were the stars of the show at the unveiling of a new SAAF plane, writes Jan Taljaard IT was not so much the aeroplane but the new minister of defence and his deputy that were the real focus of attention. In the first public ceremony of its kind since the […]

The relaunch of the Afrikaner Volksfront appears to be little more than a damp squib, reports Jan Taljaard THE once-influential Afrikaner Volksfront (AVF) — relaunched last weekend after its demise in the wake of the April election — has been dismissed as “the Conservative Party in disguise”. At a press conference held to launch the […]

DONNA SUMMER: Endless Summer (Casablanca) DONNA SUMMER’S fourth greatest-hits package, no less, contains little that wasn’t on the first three, but it does serve to remind why she was the undisputed queen of what was once called disco. Her voice was enormous, and was never better than when she dropped it to a Barry White-like […]

Weekly Mail Reporter THE White Paper on Housing presented by Housing Minister Joe Slovo to the cabinet this week formalises agreements reached by bankers, the Department of Housing, community representatives, materials suppliers, builders and others at a housing summit in Botshabelo at the end of October. But there is one major change: the White Paper […]

The death of a key state witness has put the spotlight on inadequacies in the protection programme, writes Nombuyiselo Maloyi A RENEWED call for a radical change in South Africa’s witness protection programme was sounded this week by Brian Currin, director general of Lawyers for Human Rights (LHR), days after the killing of a key […]