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 […]

A PENSIONER who made telephonic death threats to then deputy president Thabo Mbeki has been jailed for five years by a Cape Town magistrate. Theo James Keown, 51, of Parow,made the first threat in a telephone call to Tuynhuys on May 27 last year, and the remaining four to the African National Congress’ office in […]

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, […]

Barbara Ludman Their work could not be more different – Anne Sassoon’s haunting shapes and faces, Hadassah Levin’s lyrical landscapes. But there are certain commonalities – two, actually – which make sense of their joint exhibition, on until the end of the month at the Lighthouse Gallery in the ancient city of Old Jaffa, just […]

Belinda Beresford Eighty guns for hire sat proudly on the Linder Auditorium stage in Johannesburg on Wednesday, plying their trade for love and in the hope of money. It was the inaugural concert of the new Johannesburg Philharmonic Orchestra (JPO), created by musicians from the now defunct National Symphony Orchestra (NSO). The NSO finally collapsed […]

Valentine Cascarino A new exhibition by artist Keith Dietrich called Bodies, Traces, Identities has meanings so intricate it’s enough to send viewers into a frenzy of deep thought. Consisting of 150 unframed watercolour fragments, the almost satirical works depict various body parts (some of them quite frightening) that seem to raise a sea of questions […]

Whatever the outcome of the election in Zimbabwe this weekend, Robert Mugabe has a tough time ahead David Moore Call me an individualist, but the crisis Zimbabwe faces for the next few weeks could be fixed by one man: President Robert Mugabe. Even if a huge Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) or Zanu-PF majority floods […]