Khadija Magardie Various refugee organisations around South Africa used this year’s Africa Refugee Day to slam aspects of new refugee legislation as “irresponsible”. At gatherings and celebrations countrywide to commemorate June 20 – a day declared by the United Nations and the Organisation of African Unity to highlight the plight of the continent’s refugees – […]

Merryman Kunene In the aftermath of Bafana Bafana’s poor showing at the Nike Cup in the United States recently, the issue of finding a new national team – and coach – is back in the spotlight. By the end of the 2000 African Cup of Nations campaign in Ghana and Nigeria, South Africa had been […]

Ross Garland A SECOND LOOK In 1920 the world-beating Chicago White Sox baseballers stunned the United States by revealing that they had thrown the World Series of 1919. The World Series, that pinnacle of baseball achievement, was won that year by the Cincinnati Reds. After the disappearance of crucial evidence, eight players were acquitted by […]

telescope stakes David Le Page In five years South Africa will be home to the second-largest optical telescope on Earth, thanks in large part to the ingenuity of Cape Town astronomer Darragh O’Donoghue. O’Donoghue has come up with an improvement to the plans for the South African Large Telescope (Salt) that will allow it to […]

SOME of the world’s most influential business people will be meeting this weekend with President Thabo Mbeki and senior members of his cabinet to discuss foreign investment in South Africa. The first meeting of the International Investment Committee – which was announced by Mbeki on February 4 when he addressed Parliament – will be held […]

John Saul, veteran Canadian anti- apartheid activist and widely published author on Southern African affairs, reflects on his recent stay in South Africa After a term teaching sociology at the University of the Witwatersrand, my strongest impression of the new South Africa is just how easy, in many circles, it has become to be considered […]

Shimmer Chinodya The day his father sent him to see Mr BV he put on his cream-coloured, long-sleeved shirt, his flared grey “something else” trousers and his black moccasin shoes. His mother had suggested he put on a tie and insisted on his having a solid lunch, and his father had dropped hints about him […]

One of South Africa’s most scenic and sensitive natural areas in the Eastern Cape is dotted with illegal homesteads Fiona Macleod The government is planning a new national park on the Wild Coast of Pondoland, in the Eastern Cape, which is expected to end the illegal development of holiday homes by rich whites along the […]

PALM STALKER by Rocco Bergh (Penguin) Naval architect Robert Arquette has had an interesting beginning – a father lost at sea, a mother who died giving birth on a Zululand beach, the child reared first by a hard-drinking Scot living a lonely life in the bush, then by a shady missionary. Found by his uncle […]

Growing up in abject poverty has never left general secretary of Cosatu Zwelinzima Vavi; it has informed who he is Glenda Daniels When Zwelinzima Vavi pours me tea from a hot enamel teapot, he uses his tie to protect his fingers from getting burnt. Standing, he looks down from an impressive 6 foot 4 and, […]