Ferial Haffajee The wife of the SABC editor who commissioned the soapie Avenues stars in the programme and had a leading role in its casting and scripting. Penny Rodel also rents office space from A&P Productions, which makes the weekly soap. She used the name Penny Smith for this programme alone. Pieter de Vos, the […]
The two most senior African National Congress officials in the Free State have been shunned by their supporters on the eve of the party’s preparations to elect new provincial leadership. ANC Premier Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri and the provincial chair, Zingile Dingale, appear to be facing the chop. None of the 10 Free State ANC regional branches […]
Andrew Muchineripi Soccer Test cricket umpire Mervyn Kitchen is not the only official removing dollops of egg from his face. Premier Soccer League referee Achmat Salie cautioned Orlando Pirates midfielder Naughty Mokoena twice on Sunday without sending him off. Mokoena received a yellow card soon after half-time at Vaal Professionals in the opening round of […]
Sechaba ka’Nkosi Remember Musa Myeni? He was the Inkatha Freedom Party firebrand who once threatened to unleash 150 000 Zulu impis on Gauteng to deal with township residents. That was during the violence in the early 1990s between IFP-aligned hostel dwellers and youths on the Reef. Seven years later, he has substituted his political ideology […]
Gill Moodie The government has taken the first steps towards unravelling the mess that is its information technology (IT) – and the good news for taxpayers is that government services are likely to become cheaper and faster as a result. The master plan, unveiled recently by the Department of Public Service and Administration, kicks off […]
herStoriA and Quality Life magazines have announced the winners of their story competition. Lise Day of George took first place with her story Malgas Point, Henrietta Rose-Innes of Cape Town came second with Conservation, and Graeme Friedman of Johannesburg came third with The Finger of God. The winning stories are published in this month’s edition […]
Belinda Beresford The sisters are doing it for themselves these days, both in South Africa and across the world. Rather than settling for a traditional role as the power behind the throne, increasingly women are reaching and grabbing the reins of power directly. Female economic clout is growing – internationally women make up 40% to […]
Alex Duval Smith Some things change – Zaire is now the Democratic Republic of Congo – but despots just change their spots. President Laurent-Dsir Kabila, hailed as heading a new breed of African leaders, increasingly looks like Mobutu Sese Seko, minus the leopard-skin hat. On May 17 1997, thousands of people welcomed Kabila’s victorious rebel […]
Ken Barris THE IBIS TAPESTRY by Mike Nicol (Knopf) The cover blurb describes The Ibis Tapestry as “a thriller with all the searing immediacy of today’s headlines”. An understandable bit of commercial fantasy perhaps, but wildly inaccurate, and unjust to a book that should be taken seriously on its own terms: as a referential maze […]
Fumane Diseko hit the streets to find out if sisters have felt the changes of the past four years Sam Canham (30), unemployed, from Durban `If a woman has been divorced, she should not pay taxes because they are the bread winners in the family and, at the end of the day, they have nothing […]