Yearly Archives: 2001

Michael Hartnack Zimbabwe’s in-your-face Department of Information was at it again last week, fulminating on everything from first lady Grace Mugabe’s right to keep secret her abysmal London University law exam results, to the alleged conspiracy of whites behind South Africa’s planned deportation of Zimbabwean farm workers. Playing the race card, an unnamed “authoritative source” […]

NO blows BARRED Sipho Seepe Had it not been for adverts in the media, the recent International Conference on Indigenous Know-ledge Systems: African Perspectives hosted by the University of Venda would have gone unnoticed. Indigenous Knowledge Systems (IKS) refer to intricate knowledge systems acquired over generations by communities as they interact with the environment. It […]

No one can stay young for ever, but if you’re happy with your body, you’ll always be beautiful BODY LANGUAGE Jeanette Winterson The late Mrs Winterson had a bathing costume made from blackout material. This home-made suit was a descendant of those Victorian beach effects worn by women to conceal their modesty, known in the […]

Barry Streek Minister of Water Affairs and Forestry Ronnie Kasrils has told his Director General, Mike Muller, to break the law if it is necessary to implement his department’s water programmes. Kasrils admitted in August that there had been underspending on water programmes and said they were being implemented too slowly because of problems with […]

Matthew de Wet The recent attacks in the United States have placed stock markets under significant pressure. This has opened up a number of opportunities for investors and capital is flowing from the equity markets into the perceived safe havens of money market deposits and bonds. The fact is, however, that interest rates in the […]

After a week of high tension over the future role of controversial mayor Peter Marais in the Democratic Alliance, matters come to a head at the party’s national management committee meeting on Friday. DA deputy leader Marthinus van Schalkwyk spoke to Marianne Merten Marianne Merten (MM): Is there a war of nerves and words between […]

Kenya proved they aren’t always the whipping boys Peter Robinson Of all the international captains currently tramping through world cricket, easily the most engaging is Kenya’s Maurice Odumbe. Put it this way, if you were planning to throw some steak on the braai and pass a few beers around, then the cricketer to call to […]

Barry Streek Controversy-dogged land tenure legislation is to be tabled in Parliament next year, after a week-long national conference on land rights at which the government hopes to forge consensus among conflicting actors in the land field. The legislation is intended to give tenants, living under chiefs’ tenure, rights guaranteed in the Constitution. Seen as […]

Khadija Magardie Watching her willowy teenaged daughter and her gurgling grand-daughter playing together, Veronica’s* eyes glisten with tears. The soft-spoken woman says simply: “When I see them together, so happy, I ask myself time and time again, why did this happen?” Her daughter, Sibongile, is HIV-positive. So is her six-month-old grandchild, Tinashe. The baby was […]

The Afghanistan squad saw no reason to cancel their Pakistan tour Luke Harding in Peshawar In a scruffy cricket ground in the frontier town of Peshawar, a group of young men with beards are playing cricket. Things are not going well in their homeland: there is drought, famine and American bombardment. On the cricket pitch […]