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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
The Cape’s jackass penguin rescue operation didn’t always run as smoothly as the public may believe, reports Fiona Macleod ‘CRUDE is rude, dude” proclaims the T-shirt worn by an American volunteer washing oil-ravaged jackass penguins at the rescue centre run by the South African National Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal Birds (Sanccob) in Cape […]
Chris Louw TENSION is running high at the ANC’s Shell House headquarters as the final date for the organisation’s internal restructuring approaches. Hundreds of ANC employees expecting to lose their jobs are insisting on being re-employed in the civil service. An internal memorandum detailing their fears and frustrations was this week leaked to the Mail […]
Pact has boycotted the first major initiative by PWV Arts and Culture Minister Peter Skosana to formulate arts funding policy, writes Mark Gevisser ‘IT was a public act of suicide,” said Johannesburg city councillor Cecil Bass of the last-minute decision, by the Performing Arts Council of the Transvaal, to boycott a conference on public funding […]
GHOSTS OF VERWOERD WITH the new “rainbow parliament” firmly ensconced in the parliament buildings in Cape Town and all likenesses of Hendrik Verwoerd banished from the premises, it would appear that every trace of the apartheid era has been obliterated from the country’s supreme governing body. But things may not be quite what they seem: […]
Jacques Magliolo Listen closely to rumour mongers at the Johannesburg Stock Exchange and you will hear joyous cries of “The multi-nationals are coming back.” If statistics provided by the Washington-based Investor Responsibility Research Centre are anything to go by, foreign investment is definitely bound for our shores. Distributed in South Africa by McGregors, the research […]
CRICKET: Paul Martin THEY froze in amazement when denied, they ran in from the far-flung corners of Headingley to congratulate supposed wicket-takers, they stared in mute (and not so mute) amazement at the umpires. It was, as Kepler Wessels said afterwards, “a bit ridiculous”. The English press made a meal of the remarks: they love […]
CRICKET: Mike Atherton, at the centre of a ball-tampering row, but still proud to lead England, talks exclusively to Paul Martin FOR a man who was in deep personal anguish and cricketing crisis only a few days ago, Mike Atherton is proving that the old bulldog spirit lives on. In looks he is the antithesis […]
“THE whites are resentful of the changes that have taken place. If you ask them for money, they tell you to go and ask Mandela,” says S’busiso Nxele, an unemployed 24-year-old who lives on the streets. For him not much has changed, except maybe the behaviour of the police. Pointing at the fire he’s lit […]
Sibusiso Nxumalo WOMEN across the country marked Women’s Day by mourning the death of ANC MP Feroza Adam, credited with inspiring and uniting women across race and class divisions as a tireless worker for women’s rights. Adam (33) died on Monday night in Cape Town’s Groote Schuur Hospital after a car accident last Saturday. The […]
Professor Carel Boshoff wants to turn the north-west Cape into South Africa’s Silicon Valley, reports Jan Taljaard THE FIRST concrete plans for an Afrikaner homeland were laid before the Volkstaat Council this week, And the most novel of these is a proposal from Professor Carel Boshoff and his Afrikaner Freedom Foundation (Avstig) to turn the […]
Unless more money is forthcoming from government, the National Peace Secretariat is unlikely to survive, writes Stefaans Brummer THE National Peace Secretariat and its regional and local peace committees, widely credited with dampening political violence countrywide, are fighting for their survival with a budgetary shortfall of at least R35-million. The financial woes of the peace […]
RUGBY: Barney Spender ON THE 12th green with the rain beginning to fall gently, the big man in the lumberjack shirt lines up the putt. His three colleagues look on quietly as he steadies himself, gripping the putter lightly in his lumberjack hands. Finally he is ready and the ball rolls toward the hole. And […]
The Development Bank has come up with an innovative plan for land reform, reports Teigue Payne AN INNOVATIVE way of addressing South Africa’s imbalance in ownership of farming land and assets, or at least blurring the “black” or “white” labels on farm land ownership — shareholdings for farmworkers — has received an enthusiastic response among […]
Cato Manor squatters face eviction after an IFP minister accused Sanco of orchestrating land grabs. But shack lords may be behind the problem, reports Farouk Chothia THE kwaZulu/Natal Minister of Housing and Local Government, Peter Miller, has accused the South African National Civic Organisation (Sanco) of “orchestrating” the occupation by squatters of land earmarked for […]
The Markets Jacques Magliolo Today we take you to a brand new casino in downtown Johannesburg. No, not to the Calton Hotel or some shady hole in Hillbrow, but to Diagonal Street; to that financial stronghold called the Johannesburg Stock Exchange. “When markets are quiet, we bet on horse racing,” says a senior equity dealer, […]
Gone are the rough, raw emotions. But don’t blame Koos Kombuis; it’s the production that’s the problem, writes Fred de Vries IT’S confession time. I love the music of Koos Kombuis. But his first proper album since 1989s Niemandsland is a bitter disappointment. Or perhaps one should say: it could have been so much better […]
Is regional public broadcasting the responsibility of the SABC or of the provinces? The first salvos have been fired in a heated dispute between the premiers and central government, writes Mark Gevisser A RAGING controversy over North-West premier Popo Molefe’s decision to appoint one of his provincial government’s advisers as director general of the vast […]
THE transition that propelled Safoora Sadek from activist to a member of the PWV legislature was so quick that she is still getting used to her title of “honourable member”. The former national director of the Human Rights Commission is also battling to come to grips with the culture of politics in the provincial legislature. […]
Peter and Gary Kirsten have already made their mark in the current test series … but they’re amazed they’re even there CRICKET: Paul Martin ON the Knysna lagoon a year-or-so ago, a rubber dinghy floated idly along. “We had a few Castles in the boat, and we didn’t even notice the fishes on the hook,” […]
Weekly Mail Reporter OWNERS of guns of all kinds — licensed or not, toys or real — will give up their weapons at mosques, churches and synagogues countrywide later this year if the Gun Free South Africa Campaign gets its way. Methodist Bishop Peter Storey, chairman of the campaign, said this week it was aiming […]