Wally Mbhele `These are times that try man’s soul. The summer-time soldier and the sunshine patriot will shrink from the services of the nation. He or she who stands it now, deserves the honour of the nation.” These were introductory quotes from chief land claims commissioner Joe Seremane in a controversial address he made to […]
Mark Hulbert Share World What a difference two months can make. As recently as this summer, the debate between market timers and buy-and-hold investors was all but dead. After all, this year was shaping up as yet another in which virtually no market timers – investors who try to jump in and out of stocks […]
airwaves Ferial Haffajee Allister Sparks is an unlikely Ted Turner. Other than the grey hair, the local journalist has until now had little in common with the American media magnate. Now Sparks is the driving force behind SABC-Africa, a 24-hour news channel going head-to-head with Turner’s CNN for supremacy of the African airwaves at least. […]
Dan Atkinson It’s that point in the economic cycle once again. It comes around like New Year’s Eve and usually leaves behind the same trail of wreckage, destruction and blinding hangovers. Yes, it’s junk time. Some of us can remember this X-rated film the last time it was showing. How we thrilled to the transatlantic […]
Maureen Barnes Down the tube Until last Sunday, my acquaintance with e.tv was through the newspaper schedules. Friends, either new or old, while immensely popular with the young and hopeful, was not worth turning back the clock for, nor was early Oprah, and as with M-Net, if the movie was good – and some were […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Friday 10.30am. BJORN BORG on Thursday annihilated Argentinian veteran Guillermo Vilas to proceed to the semifinals of the MTN Champions Tournament, being played at the University of Pretoria indoor arena. Borg (42), who held his world number-one ranking for an incredible 109 weeks in his prime, outplayed Vilas in all departments […]
The battle for Kindu is crucial to the course of the Congo war, writes Ann Eveleth and Howard Barrell This week’s battle for the mid-eastern town of Kindu in the Democratic Republic of Congo marks a turning point for the two-month-old civil war. A victory for the rebels would open the way for them to […]
The makers of South Africa’s foreign policy need a long, hard think, suggests William Boot The king of Lesotho is seldom permitted to make public utterances. But sometimes his private observations are passed on by friends and advisers – like what he said when he returned from the recent Southern African Development Community (SADC)summit in […]
Andrew Marr ENGLAND, ENGLAND by Julian Barnes (Jonathan Cape) That England has become a theme-park nation is a chattering-class clich. It is also at least partly true. There is no English crisis, but there is a problem. In England, everything becomes a tradition, and that includes the confection of tradition. But the quantity of contemporary […]
David Beresford Racism, it seems, is the bane of even the most civilised police forces. That, at least, is the experience of the man many would regard as the world’s top cop, who landed up in South Africa this week on something of a holiday from a race row which is threatening his job. Sir […]