Bart Luirink A bronze bust depicting Dutch Nazi collaborator Jacob van Tilburg has been consigned to oblivion in the basement of the University of Pretoria (UP), but controversy is still raging about his art collection on display on the campus. The collection was in all likelihood stolen from Dutch Jews deported from Holland during World […]

Mandy Collins For those of us without children, the last time school fees figured in our lives was when our parents gave us a small brown envelope for the school secretary, while they grumbled that R20 a term was akin to extortion. Well, times have changed, and if you’re considering parenthood, or have just had […]

Tangeni Amupadhi Soweto police believe their “positive attitude” explains their higher conviction record for rape cases compared to their counterparts in other Johannesburg suburbs. Although statistics indicate a pathetic one out of 400 conviction rate for rape cases, a survey on sexual violence conducted in the southern Johannesburg shows Soweto police stations are streets ahead. […]

hemp You’ve heard of lager, pilsener, draught and stout. Now there’s hemp beer. It’s called Hanf (“hemp” in German), made by Wdi Bru in Switzerland, and it’s finally available in South Africa (Cape Town and Gauteng only). At the third birthday party of Pretoria pita bar and reggae club Tings an’ Times on October 10, […]

Cameron Duodu: LETTER FROM THE NORTH As you read this, many of my Nigerian friends who had gone into exile to escape from the wrath of the brutal dictator, General Sani Abacha, have either returned home, or are about to do so. Among them is Wole Soyinka, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in […]

Michael Metelits I admit it. I was a yuppie during the 1980s. Not just any kind of yuppie, either. I was the trade settlement operations manager for a small, but nonetheless venal, investment management firm in Boston. I sat on the trading floor and witnessed a great deal of what the Eighties had to offer. […]

Rebels in the Democratic Republic of Congo scored an important victory this week in capturing the town of Kindu, which Laurent Kabila’s government was trying to use as the launch pad for a counter-offensive against the rebels. But the victory merely underlines why that long-suffering nation cannot afford a military solution to its problems. What […]

Howard Barrell and Stuart Hess Minister of Health Nkosazana Zuma has vigorously defended her decision not to allow the state to pay for pregnant HIV-positive women to be treated with AZT, an expensive drug that could reduce the risk of their children being born with the virus. The decision by Zuma and the nine provincial […]

Anew TV documentary seeks out the person behind the `freak’ Sara Baartman, writes Alex Dodd `Can you imagine? You’ve become a rented spectacle. You’re owned by a guy who sells you to an animal trainer who then hires you out to scientists. And you return home to stay with his animals. There’s probably a trained […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Pretoria | Thursday 8.00pm. STATE witnesses in the Bronkhorstspriut heist trail were offered cars, houses and salaries to testify, counsel for three of the accused suggested in the Pretoria high Court on Friday. Fifteen men are have pleaded not guilty to charges of murder, attenmpted murder, robbery and car theft. The court heard […]