Staff Reporter

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

Mozambique’s election results reflect a practical solution to the country’s crises, not moral amnesia, argues Ross Herbert RENAMO’S relative electoral success in Mozambique is a riddle worth analysing. Yet the article by Eddie Koch and Joe Hanlon (November 25 – December 1) does more to cloud than clarify. Perplexed about how Renamo could win a […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

African Encounters has moved to Johannesburg from Cape Town, where it received favourable reviews. Ivor Powell takes a different stand AFRICAN Encounters, presented at MuseumAfrica in Newtown under the auspices of the paragovernmental French Institute, is one of those shows that the official representatives of the old colonial governments love to treat us to: seemingly […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

The joy of winning: A victory at last is good, but the way it was achieved is better CRICKET: Jon Swift A SOLITARY win in a dozen one-day outings in a limited overs international that will be largely unremembered in three seasons’ time, is hardly cause for celebration. But the overall manner in which Hansie […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

A video shows another side of this week’s eviction of illegal squatters in central Johannesburg, reports Mduduzi ka Harvey A VIDEO cassette in the possession of the Weekly Mail & Guardian strongly supports claims by squatters forcefully evicted from Claridge Court in central Johannesburg this week that police played a part in the trashing of […]

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 […]

fight He may be vulnerable and fragile, but Joe Slovo’s political and personal battles are not over yet, reports Phillip van Niekerk A FEW weeks ago Joe Slovo’s battle with cancer took on a very public dimension. A dramatic weight loss and sudden gaunt appearance, brought on by an unfavourable response to new medication, unleash-ed […]

Farouk Chothia THE ANC signalled its intention to prise support from the Inkatha Freedom Party in kwaZulu/Natal with the election last weekend of two traditional leaders to senior positions in the organisation’s new provincial executive committee (PEC). Chief Zibuse Mlaba was elected deputy chairman at a provincial conference last weekend, while Chief Elpheus Molefe was […]

SOUTH African businessmen have come through a tough time in the past five years. They have faced high inflation, prohibitive interest rates, political upheaval and rampant violence and crime. The general election may have changed the country, but negative factors have not entirely disappeared. Since April, we have seen strike action and violent confrontation at […]

Critical Consumer Pat Sidley JUST when you thought it was safe to dump your increasingly expensive Telkom phone and service and invest in a cellular alternative, Telkom has opted for legal action to make it less tempting to get the “better connection”. Court action — which was postponed this week, but will go ahead in […]

CINEMA: Stanley Peskin OLIVER STONE’S Natural Born Killers portrays a Darwinian vision of modern society as an inferno in which only the most brutal survive. America is perceived as a war zone, not unlike Vietnam territory, that encourages guerrilla warfare and mass slaughter. In a florid and tendentious treatment of the career of two serial […]

WE have sympathised with new cabinet ministers who have had to grapple with sometimes recalcitrant departments as they try to take hold of the machinery they need to implement their policies. So we are quite taken aback at Minister of Defence Joe Modise’s frank admission that he seeks no such control over his charge, the […]

Urban Creep have been called an ‘African REM’. Can they live up to it? Luke Alfred reports THERE’S nothing to stop Urban Creep becoming the best band in South Africa. They have a high standard of musicianship, stage presence, some great epic songs and an uncommonly well-articulated vision for the future. They also have a […]

Jacques Magliolo `ALL I owed was R5 000 — that’s all! And now I’ve lost my business.” Renowned South African couturier Hilton Weiner was placed in liquidation by holding company Bergers before it too was placed under final liquidation.Like so many professionals Weiner concentrated on his craft and neglected making it a priority to understand […]

CINEMA: Fabius Burger THERE are amazing explosions in Blown Away. It’s just as well, considering the plot is so silly. A mad bomber (Tommy Lee Jones) kills off members of Boston’s bomb disposal unit, trying to wipe out James Dove (Jeff Bridges) — something to do with trouble back in Belfast. Blown Away is an […]