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 […]
The effects of political change have not yet filtered through to the exchange rate, writes Simon Segal DESPITE its recent recovery, the persistent erosion of the value of the rand is a worrying testimonial to the new government. After all, many predicted, once South Africa’s first non-racial election was over the pressure on our currency […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
“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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 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, […]
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 […]
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 […]
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. […]
Paul Stober MINISTER of Safety and Security Sydney Mufamadi has announced he will set up a special team to investigate allegations of hit-squads in the kwaZulu Police — but one of the first people he will consult is somebody who has himself been accused of involvement: kwaZulu/Natal’s minister of safety and security, Celani Mtetwa. Mtetwa […]
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 […]
Critical Consumer Pat Sidley SOUTH African consumers may soon have the advantage of the United Kingdom’s Consumers’ Association operating here. The CA recently sent representatives to South Africa to have look at the situation and is debating setting up an office here, which would also circulate a publication similar to its respected Which? magazine in […]
Native tongue Bafana Khumalo STOP the world, I want to get off! There are too many changes! My system can’t cope. The appointment pages of the business sections of newspapers used to be packed with proud, beaming white males whose bosses had just summoned them to their offices and said: “Jack, you’ve paid your dues […]
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,” […]
Performances by Malian musician Salif Keita and Dutch theatre company Dogtroep are among the trump cards of this year’s Arts Alive festival in Johannesburg, writes Bafana Khumalo HOT on the heels of the Standard Bank National Arts Festival in Grahamstown, Arts Alive — Johannesburg’s answer to cultural relevance — has announced its line-up for this […]
Jacques Magliolo British Minister of Trade and Industry Heseltine’s recent visit to South Africa was more than a welcome back to the Commonwealth. Among his entourage were Commonwealth Development Corporation (CDC) representatives, whose plegde to invest in the new South Africa seemed to go unnoticed. Their commitment does not lie in money or investment of […]
Farouk Chothia LAMONTVILLE residents have illegally occupied scores of homes built in the township south of Durban arguing that they have preference in terms of the government’s Reconstruction and Development Programme. People took occupation of the houses — built by Stocks & Stocks for Toyota employees — last Sunday and have vowed not to move. […]
The JSE is set to make its contribution to the RDP by introducing a new Main Board market, writes Jacques Magliolo Finally, the Johannesburg Stock Exchange is to show that it has the courage to launch itself into a world of black business and empowerment. For the JSE this was a previously unthinkable notion, but […]
The government hopes to control the billions of rands allocated for development with a controversial licensing proposal, reports Chris Louw A POWER struggle is raging between the government and independent development organisations for control over billions of rands flowing into the Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) from abroad. At stake is R2-3 billion allocated to […]
David Frost can live up to his name and beat the debilitating heat at next week’s US PGA in Oklahoma GOLF: Jon Swift THIS has, by anyone’s yardstick, been a bumper year for southern African golf. Ernie Els the US Open champion, Simon Hobday, winner of the veteran’s equivalent and Nick Price a popular winner […]
Weekly Mail Reporter THE Market Theatre Company’s production of Scenes from an Execution won seven of the FNB Vita PWV theatre awards last week. The play was named best production of the year. Also honoured were its director, Clare Stopford; Dawid Minnaar and Camilla Waldman, who took the awards for best performance by supporting actors; […]
Saccawu, one of the country’s biggest unions, is a headache for Pick ‘n Pay — but it’s also a headache for Cosatu, writes Drew Forrest ‘WE have no problem with Jews as a religious group,” explained the union official on radio, in defence of strikers who had hurled anti-Semitic slogans at a Jewish old age […]