Michael White and Liz McGregor What should have been a triumphant valedictory tour for Nelson Mandela before he steps down as president of South Africa has been marred by European Union failure, under Tony Blair’s presidency, to deliver on open trade promises made when apartheid collapsed. Mandela joined the EU heads of government for lunch […]
The truth commission has subpoenaed policeman `Lappies’ Labuschagne about his alleged involvement in the killing of ANC leaders, write Wally Mbhele and Stuart Hess The police detective connected to the arrest of foreign affairs official Robert McBride is allegedly implicated in an attempted assassination in exile of top African National Congress leaders, including Joe Slovo, […]
Africa David Shapshak A new generation of low-orbit communications satellites could be the boost African telecommunications is looking for. While South Africa’s fledgling techno- enthusiastic population has embraced cellular telephony, it has not established much else on the continent. However, satellite companies are expecting Africa to hop directly to satellite use. Communication by satellite has […]
Alex Dodd Even a telephone conversation with gifted storyteller Antoinette Pienaar leaves you feeling like your blood’s flowing at a different pace through your veins. I’m in an office in the metropolis and she’s miles away on a farm drenched in winter sunlight, yet when we’ve finished speaking my heart is somehow beating at a […]
Community theatre is alive and well, and generating debate. Phillip Kakaza looks at two recent examples `South African theatre is floating on the waves of political change,” observes Johnny Loate, whose play, Cabbages and Bullets, 1998 winner of the Windybrow Arts Festival FNB Vita Award, is now at the Windybrow. “Protest theatre was based on […]
Adam Haupt Live in Cape Town FUCT is one of those grotte which conservatives might avoid and which diligent cops give a good run through on a night out on the town. Watching our men in blue on the go to the sounds of really great drum ‘n’ bass and mostly commercial hip hop is […]
Charl Blignaut The simmering feud between top South African d’gong band Skeem and the local division of record company Sony Music Entertainment this week threatened to ignite and in so doing spark an all-out war between Sony and PolyGram South Africa, with whom Skeem’s label Ghetto Ruff has a distribution deal. The battle takes place […]
Pennywhistle master Big Voice Jack Lerole played on the streets of Alexandra township in the Fifties. Today he’s a star in New York. Peter Makurube takes a cruise down memory lane `Midway through the Dave Matthews Band’s sellout show at Giants Stadium [New Jersey],” writes Leita Tayler of Newsday, “the group brought a South African […]
John Owen Editors are biting fingernails and journalists are whispering in the corridors as the neck-on-neck magazine market prepares itself for the arrival of a kick- ass competitor in the form of Y, a new magazine written by young black people for young black people. The fire behind all the smoke has come into view […]
The whole of East Asia and the global markets, of which the Johannesburg Stock Exchange is one small component, suffered the reverberations of this week’s seismic shock in Japan when the second-largest economy in the world sank into its first recession for nearly a quarter of a century. The situation was rescued by United States […]