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/ 24 March 2000

The fall of Karoo media empire

The people of the Karoo may soon find themselves even more isolated Lynda Gilfillan Karoo dorps – Burgersdorp, Jansenville, Murraysburg – may seem like one-horse towns to tourists speeding past the road markers on the N1, but a glance at a local weekly newspaper reveals deep undercurrents of tragedy and frivolity, politics, life and death. […]

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/ 24 March 2000

The death toll of devotion

Vikram Dodd November 1978 In the largest cult-inspired mass suicide of recent times, 914 followers of the Reverend Jim Jones’s People’s Temple died at Jonestown, Guyana. Most drank a grape punch that was laced with cyanide. Those who refused to drink it were shot. A sign over Jones’s altar read: “Those who forget the past […]

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/ 24 March 2000

Tell and sell is where it’s at

Steve Outing In the days of yore (pre-Internet, that is), news media and corporations had clearly defined boundaries. Magazines and newspapers gave readers news and objective information. Companies tried to sell goods and services, and placed ads in magazines, newspapers and on TV as a way to sell more. Ah, life was simple then. The […]

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/ 24 March 2000

Talks of fairly sharing the Inkomati

As floods continue to wreak havoc across Southern Africa, a look at the conservation of water resources may seem irrelevant, but delegates at an international water conference took a longer-term view Jubie Matlou in The Hague, The Netherlands A draft blueprint for fair and equal access to the Inkomati River by South Africa, Swaziland and […]

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/ 24 March 2000

Africa’s plethora of apocalyptic cults

Bertrand Rosenthal The Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God cult, of which about 470 members apparently committed mass suicide in rural Uganda, is the latest manifestation of indigenous Christian sects with apocalyptic, sometimes revolutionary overtones. In Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi and Uganda, the synthesis of Christianity and traditional African religions, partly as a rejection […]

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/ 24 March 2000

Action with too little discussion

Steven Friedman WORM’S EYE VIEW We like politicians who act. We do not seem to like working out whether the actions solve our problems. Take Minister of Safety and Security Steve Tshwete. With his enthusiastic support, police are “sorting out” inner Johannesburg amid gung-ho statements on the success of the operation and the number of […]

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/ 24 March 2000

A party, prayers, then suicide

There were signs in the week prior to the mass cult suicide that something unusual was going on Anna Borzello in Kanungu, Uganda A mass of tangled bodies lay sprawled on the floor of the makeshift church. The corrugated tin roof had fallen in from the pressure of the flames, and rain spattered down on […]

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/ 24 March 2000

21 years of Radio Bop

Thebe Mabanga IN YOUR EAR This is the story of Radio Bop (MW540).The station recently celebrated its 21st birthday, marking a milestone in the station’s chequered history. It was established under homeland rule in the old Bophuthatswana and for the better part of its existence was the pride of black media. To measure the extent […]

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/ 24 March 2000

10 merinos in 15 minutes

We may have lost the African Cup of Nations, but South Africa’s sheep shearers rank among the best in the world David Le Page in Bloemfontein Like spindly insectoid arms, the clattering electric clippers descend from red wall-mounted thoraxes to molest the shuddering sheep. It’s the Bloem agricultural show. Walk past the cult of the […]

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/ 24 March 2000

Floods: Now for the good news

Fiona Macleod When tourists in the Letaba rest camp in the northern Kruger National Park saw an animal swimming furiously across the flooded Letaba River last Sunday, they thought it was a hippo. The river had breached the camp’s perimeter fence and the animal headed straight towards them. As it emerged from the water, they […]