Forget hip-hop music’s old association with expensive dental accessories, dropping it like it’s hot, sipping on gin and juice or Courvoisier or delivering devastatingly eloquent disses. The “Battle of the Giants” dance competition at Sun City last week revealed a whole new side to hip-hop, replete with sequins, lavender hoodies and krumping primary schoolers.
The transport department is throwing more money at the new traffic management system, announcing recently that it will be forced to extend the completion deadline for the new electronic National Traffic Information System at an increased cost to the state. Motorists will also have to shell out R30 per licensing transaction from July, which will go towards maintenance and upgrading costs.
With the film of his novel released this week, Giles Foden describes the challenge of bringing a tyrant to life.
“There is no secret to being a good waiter. Like any job — whether you’re working at the till in Checkers or in the post office — you need manners,” retired waiter Eddie Naicker tells Niren Tolsi.
ANC deputy president Jacob Zuma’s security personnel were forced to take additional precautionary measures last year after rumours originated that he would be poisoned, the Mail & Guardian has learnt. It is unclear from where the rumours emanated, but the M&G understands that Zuma’s aides were tipped off by sources within the National Intelligence Agency.
If Judge Joop Labuschagne rules this month that South Africa’s so-called “nuclear bazaar” trial should be held in secret, he will be making history. Even the trial of one of the kingpins in the nuclear bazaar case, German engineer Gotthard Lerch, was open to the public and press in the south-west German town of Mannheim.
Imran Ismail is the invisible man. Now believed to be in his early 40s, he started his working life in an unprepossessing way when his uncle secured him a job at a friend’s Fordsburg business, Roshnee Enterprises, now one of the country’s biggest importers of fireworks.
![]()
Presidential hopeful and African National Congress deputy president Jacob Zuma has erected a security wall around himself, saying he fears he could be assassinated ahead of the ANC conference in December. However well grounded, the cloak and dagger claims highlight the growing climate of fear and distrust that has infected South Africa’s political scene.
The Scorpions are closing in on Jackie Selebi. Indications are that the elite unit’s investigation of the police National Commissioner, first highlighted by the Mail & Guardian a year ago, is coming to a head. Well-placed sources say they have received indications that charges may be levelled against Selebi soon.
A Zimbabwean magistrate’s court ruled this week that suspected mercenary Simon Mann, who is serving a four-year jail term for purchasing arms without a valid certificate, can be extradited to Equatorial Guinea to face trial on charges of plotting to overthrow the government there.