Composer Phillip Miller finds his music on the township streets, writes Alex Dodd Press play. Slowly the room is filled with spirits and memories. Geographies shift: now an empty Johannesburg, now a misty Warsaw. Here an empty leather suitcase, there a red silk dressing gown left on a chair. A violin stretches heavenwards thinly, sadly, […]

Planned public hearings into the Department of Welfare’s re-registration drive for grant beneficiaries have been called off. Peter Dickson reports Human rights campaigners in the Eastern Cape are up in arms over a decision by two provincial legislature committees on Tuesday to deny the disabled a voice by calling off planned public hearings into the […]

MORE than 2500 people employed by chiefs in the Northern Provicne have been on strike for 18 days, demanding to become public servants, but the provincial administration is not budging. The strikers are members of the Trade Union of South African Authorities(Tusaa), represented in 780 tribal authorities. They are demanding to be registered as public […]

Stefaans Brmmer Some of South Africa’s high and mighty may well be quaking after alleged mafia boss Vito Palazzolo’s arrest a week ago. Palazzolo is out on R500 000 bail pending his trial, due to start on December 3, on charges of “lying” in a 1994 citizenship application. The offence is a relatively minor one, […]

Fiona Macleod A ranger shooting a rhinoceros in the world-renowned Kruger National Park goes against everything national wildlife reserves represent. Hunting and poaching are forbidden in these reserves, and one of the rangers’ jobs is to protect endangered wild animals like rhinos from people who want to shoot them. But what about a ranger who […]

Dignitaries were impressed, but ordinary people were puzzled or unaffected by the monarch’s visit last week. Katy Bauer went to gawk at the queen To live, not as a human being, but as a symbol, is the terrible fate of the British monarch. Fortunately for Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II, this state of affairs seems […]

That engaging soul, Denis Beckett, is back in our living rooms. A new and very welcome season of Beckett’s Trek (SABC3, 21:30) began last week Thursday, its first programme having Denis traipsing around Tanzania in a somewhat disheartening bid to make sense of a country still crushed under the late Julius Nyerere’s socialist dreamplan. After […]

Mail & Guardian reporter The Council on Higher Education is a powerful and broadly based body advising the minister on every facet of the sector. The council was established under the provisions of the Higher Education Act of 1997, and the first council was appointed in June 1998 with Professor Wiseman Nkhulu as chair. It […]

CABINET on Wednesday approved the licensing of two additional national mobile cellular telecommunication networks, details of which will be announced by Telecoms Minister Jay Naidoo on Thursday. The licensing of two new networks was recommended by the South African Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (Satra) two months ago, despite the opposition of the two existing networks, Vodacom […]

John Matshikiza WITH THE LID OFF South Africa, the new kid on the African block, scored heavily at the Sanga Festival of African and Indian Ocean Choreography, held in Antanarivo, the capital of Madagascar, last week. Ntikelelo Boyzie Cekwana’s Floating Outfit Project walked away with first prize in a field of 10 strong contenders for […]