Krisjan Lemmer Squabbling continues unabated between the one-time “star” witness in the Winnie Madikizela-Mandela scandal, Katiza Cebekhulu, and his former mentor, Emma Nicholson, now dignified as Baroness Nicholson Of Winterbum (or something like that). Writing to The Guardian newspaper in Britain, Katiza complains that the dame continues to cling to the copyright to his own […]
Phillip Kakaza A melancholic nostalgia sweeps through Woza! – the Civic Theatre’s celebration of 40 years of South African musicals – as the soulful voices of Wendy Mseleku and Sibongile Mngoma and the tap-dancing feet of Somizi Mhlongo tour memory lane. King Kong’s blues number Back of the Moon and Ipi Ntombi’s Mama Thembu’s Wedding […]
Lesotho’s elections have been declared fair, but a host of inconsistencies points towards vote rigging, writes William Boot in Maseru The day before Lesotho’s general elections last Saturday, Lesotho Congress for Democracy (LCD) leader Pakaditha Mosisili stuck his neck out to predict: “We will win by a landslide.” He said this at a time when […]
Stefaans Brmmer: A SECOND LOOK Nicholas Biwott is Kenya’s political bogeyman. The minister of state in the office of President Daniel Arap Moi has a reputation that embraces ruthless murder, kleptomaniacal patronage and cynical manipulation. Any edition of one of Kenya’s more adventurous journals is as likely as not to make reference to what they […]
Alice Walker is a feminist icon and also a defiant individualist. Libby Brooks meets a woman at ease with herself, if not the world Alice Walker pads around her hotel suite like a fabulous cat. Just in from California and weary, she is not particularly friendly, but I would still like to touch her. The […]
Janet Smith Young and single was getting seriously boring till Ally McBeal made her case on television in the United States last year. Critics were yawning over the trendy narrative of ensemble casts in emotional crises after yet another season of superstar sitcom Friends, which earned that show’s cast a few million more. Come now. […]
Chris Gordon Luanda’s frantic daytime commercial activity belies tension in the peace process, but at night the city falls quiet, reflecting the fears that the low-level war will increase when the United Nations completes its pull- out at the end of June. The new impasse comes as Unita refused to hand over their political and […]
Charl Blignaut Shopping and Fucking, a controversial new theatre production, has, against all odds, ushered in a new era for Johannesburg’s Market Theatre – in the process taking its young cast into uncharted territory. The play, which contains some of the most explicit scenes ever seen on a local stage, was always going to be […]
Douglas Rushkoff: ONLINE Of all the cool and creepy pieces of vapourware to have emerged since the Web went mainstream, the coolest and creepiest have got to be intelligent agents. And, according to the press releases jamming my e-mail server, they’re here: autonomous pieces of programming trained to race around cyberspace doing our (largely consumerist) […]
Multinationals are moving into hitherto untouched areas, with catastrophic results, writes John Vidal Amungme tribal leader Yosepha Alomang, a mother of 10, should be in Britain. But as she boarded the plane this month in Irian Jaya, Indonesia, to head for London and the Rio Tinto annual meeting, she was stopped by the military. Had […]