Stephen Gray LIFESTYLE Once, for my sins, a man whose name really was Paul von Blixem approached me. He ran a mampoer distillery and his mission was to widen the appeal of his product, an important patriotic beverage, to English- speakers, not just to lying, lazy louts in the backveld. And to tourists, that was […]
Barry Streek The South African road network is in a state of rapid decline due to under- investment, with an accrued backlog for road infrastructure of R37-billion by 1997, according to Minister of Transport Dullah Omar. The Moving South Africa study, which estimated the accrued backlog, found the annual shortfall for road infrastructure in 1997 […]
MILITANT youths in Nigeria’s volatile oil-producing Niger Delta abducted five Royal Dutch/Shell workers and released them 24 hours later, company officials said on Thursday. The workers were abducted on Wednesday along with two navy escorts from Shell’s Opuama flow station in southern Delta State, the officials said. “All the hostages were released this [Thursday] morning,” […]
Cedric Mayson SPIRIT LEVEL A double page spread in the current issue of The Teacher highlights the challenge of religious education faced by our schools. In the old days, religious education was frequently boring, indoctrinated, or ignored. We need to bury it for good to rest in peace or pieces. Our new Constitution states that […]
Nigella Lawson BODY LANGUAGE There’s a poster, a huge sky-stretching poster: it features a woman, or her almost bare torso; shoulders, neck, a transparent black T-shirt over unconcealed – indeed, heightened – nipples. It’s an advertisement for Vogue.com (that’s Vogue-dot-com) though the dot is typographically missing. I don’t say it isn’t witty (and the other […]
ROB DAVIES, Cape Town | Thursday 5.10pm. A MIDFIELD battle of epic proportions awaits when the Sharks take on the Stormers at King’s Park in a final-round Super 12 match on Saturday. Pieter Muller, current holder of the Springbok jersey at inside centre, will face up to newcomer De Wet Barry — one of the […]
Andrew Osborn in Brussels Hundreds of millions of pounds stolen by the late Nigerian dictator General Sani Abacha and his entourage is stashed in bank accounts in London and Jersey, lawyers working for the Nigerian government claimed this week. The money is allegedly in accounts belonging to some of Abacha’s close family and friends and […]
destructing Mercedes Sayagues The owners of the town house I rent ring early on Monday morning. Their neighbour Allen Dunn was tortured and killed by a hit squad Sunday afternoon on his farm in Beatrice, 40km from Harare. Can I vacate the house in two days? They are panicking. My mouse crashed on the floor. […]
Neal Collins SOCCER It makes you proud (sob) to be English. True grit in the face of stunning mid- table mediocrity (sigh). It was (simper) marvellous to watch. Last Sunday we saw Southampton, safe and sound above the relegation zone, hold mighty Liverpool 0- 0. On Monday, mid-table Everton had two sent off as they […]
Fraud and corruption are widespread in the local medical industry, involving doctors, medical administrators and pharmaceutical companies Belinda Beresford South Africans are paying an estimated extra R8-billion a year in medical costs because of fraud, corruption and perverse incentives spread throughout the country’s Alice in Wonderland health care system. The private sector spends approximately R30-billion […]