Further fragmentation of the opposition is inevitable with more than 10 new political parties about to be unveiled over the next 15 days of the annual floor-crossing window. Analysts believe the parties will only fragment the opposition further, rather than reduce the ANC’s dominance in Parliament.
Beleaguered former deputy health minister Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge has not been paid her salary for August and has been asked to pay the department R312 000 for an ”unauthorised” trip to Spain. Madlala-Routledge was fired for her inability to work as part of the ”collective” and for undertaking the trip against President Thabo Mbeki’s orders.
When I meet Mac Maharaj for a one-on-one interview at his home in Morningside, he makes it clear that he has no intention of commenting on current issues. To do so would necessitate a return to active politics, he says, which he retired from in 1999 after one term as transport minister in Nelson Mandela’s Cabinet, writes Kwanele Sosibo.
”I’m not ready for the Yellow Pages,” says Azmi Bishara, the exiled former leader of Arab nationalist party Balad, when I quiz him about his itinerary on his visit to South Africa. That seemingly cryptic statement, I soon discover, is characteristic of his dry humour, which surfaces when Bishara puts aside politics and speaks about his young family, writes Kwanele Sosibo.
Clive Derby-Lewis has denied having any information pointing to a “wider conspiracy” to assassinate South African Communist Party former general secretary Chris Hani in 1993. Instead, he says, it is the ANC, the SACP and George Bizos who have suppressed information about Hani’s safety on the day of his murder.
In apartheid South Africa Chinese people were neither white nor black. While they have been mistakenly accused of enjoying honorary white status, that was afforded only to the Japanese. Today Chinese people, whether they are South African-born, Taiwanese or recent arrivals from the People’s Republic of China, still suffer from similar problems, as they are not considered previously disadvantaged.
Lolo Veleko uses photography and fashion to define her complex identity, writes Kwanele Sosibo.
Kwanele Sosibo speaks to Vincent Moloi about his documentary, A Pair of Boots and a Bicycle.
Inside her cottage behind her employers’ house in Observatory, Johannesburg, 47-year-old Flora Thembo, a domestic worker, sits next to what looks like at least several months’ supply of foodstuffs and other consumables. Some of the goods sit in their original packaging, others have been pushed into disused barrels and empty paint containers.
Film tourism might be an ambiguous term, but it refers to the idea that every time a specific location or destination is used in a film, the film indirectly promotes the destination to its viewers. "This has been evident within the Bollywood film market," says Mark Visser of the Cape Film Commission.