Melinda Wittstock The force will soon be with us – that mystical other-worldly power to convince otherwise sensible earthlings to trade billions of hard-earned dollars for hats, toys, T-shirts, games and myriad other paraphernalia linked to Star Wars. By early May The Phantom Menace, the first episode in the much-anticipated Star Wars prequel trilogy, will […]
Emeka Nwandiko Time is running out for people’s poet Mzwakhe Mbuli if he is to try avoid a minimum 10-year sentence by naming senior African National Congress leaders who he claims framed him. Mbuli and two co-accused were found guilty in the Pretoria Magistrate’s Court this week of armed robbery and possession of a hand […]
Barry Eksteen, representative for the Department of Correctional Services, responds: “Prisoners often report subjectively on their experience of prison life. In this case the allegations are generalised and without facts such as dates, names and times. I therefore prefer not to comment on his alleged experiences. However, the department has taken cognisance of them and […]
We are encouraged by the interest shown in our water projects. Particularly welcome are the concerns outlined by Charlene Smith (“Too poor to pay for services”, Monitor, March 26 to April 1) which focus on the difficult bit: keeping infrastructure working. If Smith had talked to us, we would have provided a clearer perspective. First, […]
Howard Barrell The Angolan rebel movement Unita has taken delivery of up to six Russian-built MiG fighter aircraft for use in its intensified civil war with the government in Luanda, according to security sources in Southern Africa. The aircraft are understood to have come from Ukraine, formerly part of the defunct Soviet Union, and Angolan […]
Ferial Haffajee In Cape Town, empowerment is more of an exercise in people’s capitalism than the version on show in Gauteng, the epicentre of black growth. The Western Cape’s stronger community networks and wealthier communities have ensured that opportunity has been spread more widely. Drawn largely from the ranks of struggle activists, new brown millionaires […]
When Germaine Greer was in her twenties, she acted in a short film about the fatal, destructive power of female emotions. Dressed in bridal white, her face a pan-stick parody of women’s magazine femininity, she plays a woman pushed to the edge of madness by a heartless, intransigent man who, in spite of her entreaties, […]
Madam Speaker, I beg to move that this House unreservedly condemns the five-year suspended sentence imposed on Nicholas Steyn for the slaying of six-month-old Angelina Zwane on his Benoni farm. Madam Speaker, it is conventional wisdom, in parliamentary democracies, that the executive and the legislature do not normally “interfere” with the judiciary. The executive formulates […]
An ex-punk composer has teamed up with a Soweto choir for a collaboration that’s proving fruitful on the independent gospel scene, writes Andrew Kaye It is perhaps with a slight sense of ironic cruelty, that, within a few short minutes, the gods of music deigned to impart the gift of genius (in the form of […]
Neil Manthorp in Wellington Cricket Hansie Cronje and Bob Woolmer both emphasised that the tour of New Zealand had been a great success before the final three one-dayers were even played – winning the Test series was the priority. “We approached the West Indies series with a different attitude, and that was to expect to […]