Julie Barker AT Western Platinum Mine in Mooi Nooi, near the Magaliesberg, a group of mine employees is rehearsing a play. They are putting the final touches on Shortcuts. The group is called Thuto ke Lesedi, which means Education is Light. Formed just over a year ago, Thuto ke Lesedi has, with the help of […]
Ann Eveleth BLACK students attending school in a working-class Afrikaans suburb of Pretoria West should “go back to Soweto”, said white parents standing guard outside Elandspoort High School this week after three days of racial clashes which saw two students hospitalised with bat and knife wounds. By Thursday morning the school was still struggling to […]
A special investigative unit arrived in Mpumalanga this week and is uncovering politicians’ dicey deals, reports Justin Arenstein THE National Parks Board chairman and respected former homeland leader, Dr Enos Mabuza, is being probed by the most powerful government investigative unit in South Africa for a state farm he bought for R6 000 in 1991 […]
If computers can beat humans at chess, does that make them smarter than us? Julia Grey reports MACHINE has finally conquered man: Garry Kasparov, world champion chess player, succumbed this week to IBM’s supercomputer, Deep Blue, in their six-game rematch. The outlandish vision of the science fiction world, seen in 2001: A Space Odyssey, where […]
herStoriA deputy editor DELIA ROTHNIE-JONES explores the rewards of literary prizes THE recent death of the CNA Literary Award means that another window of opportunity for writers has been boarded up. Soon we shall be left only with peep-holes into our country’s soul. Faced with this withering of literary activity, we are forced to ask […]
IF the writing was not on the wall for the Mobutu Sese Seko regime before, it was there last week in a cable sent to Washington by the United States embassy in Kinshasa. It reported that the newly appointed prime minister of Zaire, General Likulia Bolongo was preparing for “a speedy departure from Kinshasa with […]
De Kock was told to find evidence in support of Vlok’s claims.
SOCCER: Andrew Muchineripi THE soccer programme this weekend is nothing if not varied with two Zimbabwe clubs in South Africa, Aces staging a home match several hundred kilometres from their Witbank base, and some strange kick-off times. On Saturday afternoon, Harare Glamour Boys Dynamos are at PAM Brink Stadium in Springs to face Jomo Cosmos […]
THEATRE: Lesley Marx ‘IF you want to film a definition of irony,” Brian Astbury tells me, ”do it here.” The point is well taken. He has been directing David Mowat’s The Guise for Capab Drama. The Guise was the last play to be banned at The Space theatre nearly two decades ago. The Space itself […]
LORRAINE SITHOLE, a mother of three, looked up at the sky and sighed, mumbling, ”I’m sure God will help us”. She does not know how long her corrugated iron shack will remain on the dusty Pretoria hillside. In January Sithole – who is ”not sure” how old she is – and 2 800 other families […]