Simon Segal reports on booming fruit export markets SOUTH Africa’s citrus exports are now expected by Outspan, the industry’s international marketing arm, to be a record 34 million 15kg cartons. This should earn R1,4-billion and is three million cartons higher than last season at a value of R1,2-billion, and two million more than the 1992 […]
If Winnie Mandela had made it to Parys at the weekend, she would have found forgiveness, reports Sibusiso Nxumalo SLAIN child activist Stompie Seipei’s unmarked grave in the Parys township of Tumahole had been specially cleaned for the occasion. A buffet luncheon had been laid on at a local hotel; the community hall was filled […]
GOLF: Jon Swift THERE is something very refreshing in this harsh and materialistic world about the way Ernie Els approaches the business of professional golf. Evidences of this is his wavering about taking up the 10-year exemption his historic win in the US Open earned him earlier this year. In this apparent indecision, Els has […]
TELEVISION Sophie Perryer WHEN the makers of The Line chose a title for their series, they must have suspected someone would accuse them of having crossed it. After all, when politics is involved you can’t please everyone. But while The Line’s sympathies are unmistakably with the ANC, the people the series is going to please […]
There’s a global movement going on, fusing New Age themes with computer cyberpunk and techno music. Now the Zippies have a new hang-out in downtown Jo’burg. Sean Badal checked IT out THE fashion guerrillas that prowl the tattered urban landscape of downtown Johannesburg over weekends have a new hang-out. It’s called IT — and if […]
CRITICAL CONSUMER Pat Sidley HOLLAND is a country which is seen, not least by its own residents, as being inhabited by rational people who discuss issues endlessly in forums before making decisions. It is this peculiar aspect of Dutch society which has been targeted by the tobacco industry in its international defence of unprecedented criticism. […]
SOCCER: Ray Nxumalo A WHISTLEMAN who has lost the respect of players and officials is not worthy of officiating at a game whose result may endanger lives of spectators, the players themselves and further tarnish the image of a game so bedevilled by scandals. The image of soccer is soiled in the eyes of spectators; […]
Privatisation of large parastatals is not yet on the cards, says Public Enterprise Minister Stella Sigcau, but it hasn’t been ruled out. Duma Gqubule spoke to her about this vital issue NOWADAYS, hardly a week passes by without a captain of industry or economist making a statement encouraging the government to start privatising state-owned enterprises […]
Johannesburg Prison inmates who have tested HIV-positive are stigmatised, abused and denied rights granted to other prisoners, they told Philippa Garson ‘IT’S like you’re a snake that someone caught,” says “Ben”, “a snake that everyone comes to look at.” He’s struggling to find the right words to describe what it feels like to be HIV-positive […]
Justin Pearce LOUIS ARMSTRONG, Talking Heads and the Leningrad Cowboys are among the artists who will appear on independent cinema screens when the Primal Screen Music Film Festival plays in Cape Town and Johannesburg next month. Organised by Cas Rasch of Savage Eye Filmworks, Primal Screen brings together a collection of films and videos from […]
It might not be quite the mink ‘n manure set but show-jumper Enos Mafokate is teaching Soweto’s children how to ride, writes Sibusiso Nxumalo SHOW-JUMPER Enos Mafo-kate dreams of the day Soweto has its own riding centre where he and the township’s aspiring riders can practice a sport that has hitherto been the exclusive preserve […]
Shadley Nash A FORMER advocate of rent and services boycotts could find himself unceremoniously dumped from Port Elizabeth’s 100- member transitional local council because of his failure to pay his rates. Port Elizabeth town clerk Paul Botha will think long and hard about the situation of his former adversary but now fellow councillor, Jeremy Saffier. […]
Drew Forrest THE impasse over the salaries of ministerial staff posed a serious threat to the effectiveness of South Africa’s new executive and to the implementation of the Reconstruction and Development Programme, government insiders warned this week. Confusion over the staffers’ earnings and ranking in the civil service were a clear indication that the integration […]
David Pallister SOUTH AFRICA is negotiating with Britain to limit any embarrassment about the disclosure of illegal defence equipment sales to the former apartheid government, according to the planning director of Armscor, the country’s weapons procurement agency. Dr Andre Buys’ revelation was made at a conference for British defence contractors and Whitehall officials at King’s […]
Pompous officials and dirt in Mike Atherton’s pocket couldn’t ruin South Africa’s triumphant return to Lord’s CRICKET: Luke Alfred ALLEGED ball-tampering by the England captain Mike Atherton late last Saturday afternoon briefly threatened to overshadow South Africa’s first Test match at Lord’s for 29 years. Several other incidents, such as the old South African flag […]
CINEMA: Fabius Burger Best Film at the Edinburgh Film Festival and recipient of the Critics Award at the Venice Film Festival, Leon the Pig Farmer has a lot to live up to. Luckily, it’s a funny movie. The plot’s about a mix-up: Leon Geller (Mark Frankel), a nice Jewish boy with a compulsion about honesty, […]
Farouk Chothia THE University of Durban-Westville awarded degrees to 16 students at a graduation ceremony earlier this year — despite the fact that the students had not completed their courses. In a statement distributed on the campus last week, deputy vice-chancellor Professor John Butler-Adam said initial investigations had found that 11 students had been awarded […]
After a short visit earlier this year, American singer/songwriter Shawn Phillips is back, exploring his new- found affinity for South African music. He spoke to Julia Beffon ‘TWAS a man of no longer youthful features who settled down to talk about his second series of concerts in South Africa last week, and his long reddish […]
Peter Hain, one of the leaders of the South African sporting boycott, was at Lord’s to see last week’s historic Test. He spoke to Paul Martin IT WAS a demo’s dream, a moment of final victory. Peter Hain was chatting to Peter Pollock, whom he had kept out of England in 1970 by threats to […]
WHEN General Roy During (59) disclosed the existence of a hit-squad within his own force, it reflected the deep chasm that had opened between himself and his colleagues during his reign as KZP commissioner. An “outsider” in the force, During was more comfortable with the policemen of the new South Africa than with those trapped […]
South African operatives are allegedly still assisting Unita rebels in Angola, reports Stefaans Brummer CLAIMS are being investigated by policethat renegade Military Intelligence operatives are still supplying Angola’s rebel Unita forces, and waging an undercover campaign against a Pretoria company backing Angolan government forces, . SAPS spokesman Major Burger van Rooyen said this week: “We […]
The SABC proposal to downgrade Afrikaans is unlikely to fly, reports Drew Forrest ENGLISH language chauvinists beware — if the number of English-speakers in South Africa is the yardstick, it is the language of Shakespeare, not Hendrik Verwoerd, that should be downgraded in our public life. Official figures indicate that only eight percent of South […]
Justin Pearce “BUST of Hendrik Verwoerd. Price neg.” The advertisement in the classified section of a Cape Town newspaper was followed by a Bellville phone number. Who, in these days of post-electoral ubuntu, would be dealing in icons of a type which have been banished even from parliament? The Afrikaans-speaking woman who answered the phone […]
Philippa Garson THE plight of prisoners with HIV will be brought to the fore when an application is lodged by the Aids Law Project on their behalf. The application, to be heard in the Rand Supreme Court soon, will attempt to prevent these prisoners from being abused and stripped of their rights. It will also […]
NATIVE TONGUE Bafana Khumalo I AM walking down the street, hand in hand with my dearly beloved, gingerly stepping over the brownish water from the burst sewerage pipe. The water is coursing down in-between the matchbox houses to rest in little potholes, whereupon it collects into pungent dams in the middle of the street. It’s […]
The SABC’s floundering attempts to transform itself from a propaganda machine to a public broadcaster reflects the problems facing parastatals and the civil service, writes Mark Gevisser ‘WE are accountable to you and you alone.” With these stirring sentiments, CCV concluded its public statement to the people of South Africa, issued on Sunday over the […]
Combining movement with mime, music, narrative and design, the First Physical Theatre Company is forging a new theatrical language that decribes the complexities of interaction. Alex Dodd reports A YOUNG boy sits on top of a huge metal cage washing his hands in milk. Below, muzzled dancers compound his haunting ritual with their reeling and […]
RUGBY: Jon Swift WITH the emphasis so firmly on the trials and tribulations of the South African team in New Zealand, there is cause for a pause and a thought on the future of the Lion Cup which reaches semi-final stage this weekend. The national side will continue to play tests both home and away […]
Stefaans Brummer ANGOLA’s rebel Unita movement has given a qualified assurance it will not execute captured South African “mercenaries” after an appeal for clemency by Deputy President Thabo Mbeki. At least two South Africans working for the Pretoria-based company Executive Outcomes — whose personnel ostensibly train soldiers of the MPLA government — fell into Unita […]
Outrageous acts on the field and selection blunders off it have blighted the South African tour of New Zealand RUGBY: Barney Spender IT has hardly been the best of weeks for the South African touring team. In the space of just five days they have lost a test series to the All Blacks, seen a […]
MOVEABLE FEAST Marino Corazza I WAS not blessed with a sweet tooth. While others drool over birthday cakes, going gaga about upping their sugar levels, I’m thinking about moist biltong, won-ton and oysters. A fat slab of any kind of cake just leaves me cold — even more so when the munchers say: “Oooh, I […]
A blue train is slowly chugging around South Africa but Phelophepa is no ordinary train, reports Mapula Sibanda. It brings primary health-care to thousands of rural people AFTER the spectacles were placed on her face, the old woman blinked, then beamed with joy. Earlier she could not even see the letters on the board used […]