Chris Louw reports from Parliament Behind the NP grumbles about unfair treatment lies a belated discovery: the cabinet’s no longer the seat of power PARLIAMENTARY power is shifting inexorably away from the cabinet of national unity to the ANC-dominated standing committees. And since the NP based its negotiating strategy on shared power in the cabinet, […]
GREEDY, PAYDIRT, GOLDEN BALLS MONEY is probably the most powerful word in American movies and it’s the theme of three films now on circuit. In the amusing domestic comedy Greedy, Daniel (Michael J Fox) and assorted relatives badger rich old Uncle Joe (Kirk Douglas) for money — they think he’s about to die. The funny, […]
PROMINENT European anti-apartheid activists are angry over President Nelson Mandela’s failure to condemn human rights abuses in Indonesia.
FINE ART: Ivor Powell THERE has been a lot of hype, a lot of confusion and even more outrage generated by the three-venue exhibition (it happens simultaneously at the Everard Read Contemporary Gallery, the Market Galleries and the Institute of Contemporary Art) by Johannesburg avant gardists Joachim Schonfeldt and Kendell Geers. At least where it […]
Paul Stober and Eddie Koch A GOLD mine on the West Rand has contaminated a nearby wetland with radioactive materials, according to a study carried out by mining consultants. “It is a major environmental problem which has to be dealt with,” said Randgold Geology and Exploration head Mark Bristow, who headed the study. The wetland […]
Among the midnight neck nibblers and offbeat cult classics will be movie stars and celebrity directors. Fabius Burger reports on the new South African International Film Festival It’s easy to see that the new South African International Film Festival next month is happening post- election. Among famed directors who will be appearing, introducing their films […]
Chris Louw PROFESSOR Peter Vale, director of the Centre for Southern African Studies at the University of the Western Cape, has applied to become director general of the Department of Foreign Affairs. The post — presently occupied by Rusty Evans — was advertised recently. Vale, who was directly involved in drafting ANC foreign policy before […]
Overseas investment may not all be good. Many local businesses are ripe for picking by corporate raiders, reports Jacques Magliolo The Proposed takeover of Randgold by Fraser Alexander and consortium is “significant as a precursor to other hostile takeovers”, say corporate financiers, who add that the takeover threatens to destroy complacent lifestyles of directors and […]
Eddie Koch IF you want to be Hemingway but support the animal rights movement, there is a solution. It’s called eco-hunting and involves shooting elephants in the Zambezi Valley with splatballs made of luminous environment-friendly paint. A company in Johannesburg conducted market research in Europe and found that many modern-day hunters shoulder a contradiction. They […]
THE National Union of Metalworkers (Numsa) has notified the government it wants to sue for damages suffered in sinister security police operations to defraud it, and possibly other trade unions, of large amounts of money during the apartheid years. Preliminary details of the scam first surfaced during an investigation into the 1991 murder of Janine […]
NATIONAL Party members who continue to question the worth of a Truth Commission should spend some time with Anne Frank. Or, more precisely, with the troops of high school pupils passing through the “Anne Frank in the World” and “Apartheid and Resistance” exhibitions at Johannesburg’s new MuseumAfrica. A white girl says: “We need to learn […]
NATIVE TONGUE Bafana Khumalo BROTHERS and sisters of all hues, religious beliefs, sexual proclivity and shape of nose, don’t go to America. The Americans don’t want you. This discovery I made recently at the American consulate in Johannesburg while trying to go about the business of getting a visa to visit the land of the […]
Moveable Feast Marino Corazza SO what have the ducks and geese been seeing lately? All those crested white creatures, black East India beauties, pintail and teal cuties, orange beaked, web-footed relatives of Donald and Daffy that inhabit Zoo Lake — what do they see from their safe amphibious vantage point? On weekends they see the […]
DREAMTIME, LINK, SCRAMBLE, ODDBALL VARIATIONS FOUR women choreographers have contributed ballets to the second season of Pact Dance Company this year, but only Elisa Monte’s Dreamtime foregrounds a woman as her subject matter. Candice Johnstone’s Link is loosely anthropological, and Mandy Rabin’s Scramble and Susan Abrahams’ Oddball Variations not only have titles of similar bent […]
The disappearance of the seven single is more than a disappointment for music fans, writes Fred de Vries. Bands find it more difficult to make it and the taste of listeners is growing increasingly conservative DOES anyone still remember the good old single? That seven-inch slab of vinyl, preferably packed in an arty picture sleeve? […]
Rob Greig talks to Computicket founder Percy Tucker about the special business he started PERCY Tucker, MD and founder of Computicket, retired this week at 65 amid plaudits from the leisure industry and show business. He was uniquely able to justify the ways of Mammon to the Muses and vice versa: in this lay much […]
‘I cried because she was there, she suffered and it is something we feel in all of our hearts.’ Mark Gevisser watches white and black children at the Anne Frank exhibition ‘HOW many people lived in this room?” asked a Standard Nine pupil from Sebokeng’s Residentia High School as she entered a reconstruction of Anne […]
GOLF: Jon Swift IF YOU are prepared to turn a blind eye to a private jet, a multi-million dollar bank account and the type of celebrity status which precludes a visit to the local steakhouse, not much has changed about Nick Price. The amiable Zimbabwean’s stunning wire-to-wire victory in the US PGA at Southern Hills […]
Faced with imminent closure due to lack of funds, peace workers are rebelling , writes Stefaans Brummer THE national peace structures — which have taken much of the credit for the decrease in violence — are on the verge of disbanding while government dithers on a request for additional funding. Sources say all staff of […]
Allan Donald, South Africa’s most potent weapon to clinch the test series against England, opens up with a bout of self-criticism CRICKET: Paul Martin IN his appearance, delivery and demeanour Allan Donald is closer to the smoothness and sophistication of Jeff Thompson rather than to the anger and aggression of Dennis Lillee. Yet South Africa’s […]
If South Africa is to host the World Cup successfully next year the boardroom battles have to stop immediately RUGBY: Jon Swift JUST for a moment, think back to the uncertainty which dominated this country before the first clarion call of democracy was sounded, the new flag raised and our new state president installed. In […]
Teigue Payne reports on the coming to market of dairy company Bonnita DAIRY products company Bonnita, to be listed this month, could have better prospects than its agriculture-related image might suggest. Farming-related companies have poorer ratings than food companies on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, which probably explains why so few are listed. Raw materials make […]
The family of a murdered woman has accused the Witwatersrand attorney-general of delaying the prosecution of the alleged killer, a man suspected of being involved in a trade union scam, reports Stefaans Brummer A FORMER security police captain allegedly at the centre of a “dirty tricks” operation against a trade union, and who is a […]
Lesley Cowling JUDGE John Didcott may still sit on the Constitutional Court despite being passed over by President Nelson Mandela last week. Mandela will have to choose another six judges from a list of 10 compiled by the Judicial Services Commission — and the commission is almost certain to include Didcott. The JSC called for […]
Weekly Mail Reporter RURAL advice offices play a pivotal role in community development and it would be “development suicide” if donors withdrew their funding, said Mpho Ndebele, director of the Social Change Assistance Trust (Scat). She was responding to a report in the Mail & Guardian last week which said Eastern Cape advice offices were […]
Stefaans Brummer PETER SCHOEMAN (28) was chatting to a friend in his car near Pretoria’s Burgerspark, frequented by gay men, when he says a police flying squad car pulled up and an officer unleashed a string of obscenities against “you moffies”. Schoeman (not his real name) says this and similar incidents have eroded his respect […]
Weekly Mail Reporters CLASHES in Lesotho are unlikely to tempt South Africa to exercise its newfound moral authority and military muscle to become a regional policeman on the subcontinent. Minister of Foreign Affairs Alfred Nzo made it clear yesterday that although he was still awaiting reports from the country’s ambassador in Maseru, Gerhard Visser, South […]
The CP has put two proposals to the government with one prupose in mind — supremacy in the rightwing. Jan Taljaard reports THE Conservative Party and Afrikaner Volksfront’s (CP/AVF) proposals to the government last Friday on their possible partici-pation in constitutional talks were a last-ditch bid for supremacy within the rightwing. By putting two alternative […]
Darren Gough is an England fast bowler looking for a wicket with every ball CRICKET: David Hopps DARREN GOUGH’s emotive walk out to bat during the Headingley test provoked the most fervent outbreak of Yorkshire pride since Geoffrey Boycott anointed his own flock with his 100th first-class century 17 years ago. In fact, the acclaim […]
It was on one of those Jo’burg nights with nothing to do and nowhere to do it that an artist and two filmmakers created Bob’s Bar. ALEX DODD went along to the launch RESIDENTS of Troyeville and beyond now have good reason to sink a few doubles on the rocks and a new spot in […]
SYMPATHY FOR THE DEVIL, HIGHWAY 61 Primal Screen Festival, 7Arts, Johannesburg IN a story that sounds apocryphal but isn’t, Sympathy for the Devil director Jean Luc Godard whacked his producer Iain Qaurrier on the nose, on the stage of the National Film Theatre in November 1968 on the occasion of the film’s London Film Festival […]
Chris Louw and Gaye Davis MINISTER without Portfolio Jay Naidoo will address non- governmental organisations in Johannesburg today to discuss their role in the government’s reconstruction and development programme. The two-day conference, to be attended by more than 200 NGOs and representatives of civics, unions, youth and women’s organisations from across the country, comes amid […]