Andrew Clements CDs of the week Naxos deserves an award. Using archive material supplied by the Canadian-based Immortal Performances of Recorded Music Society, they’ve secured the commercial release of operatic radio broadcasts, taken from live performances from 1937 to 1943, some of them hitherto only available as expensive bootlegs. Not everyone will like these: recording […]
Greg Bowes Johannesburg nightlife Suddenly on Saturday nights in Johannesburg there’s a welcome and regular alternative to the usual mundane mega- raves – and one that’s showcasing local talent on the fringes of live music. And I’ll be damned, people are still dancing! The Stylus Lounge takes place every weekend at the stunning but seldom […]
Janet Smith Nine days of the Standard Bank National Festival of the Arts will be turned on by television for the first time this year with the rah-rah arrival of Cue-TV on small screens throughout Grahamstown and surrounding areas. A late autumn lunch is a moment for Christo Doherty, senior lecturer in television at the […]
Uneven standards of community care mean the state’s new policy of releasing mental patients could be a bad plan, writes Andy Duffy The deaths of seven people at the hands of former state psychiatric patients in the Western Cape have exposed a raw nerve in state health circles. The Department of Health this week slammed […]
sabotaged,’ says JSE Mungo Soggot The Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) has scotched claims by the directors of Amalia Gold Mining that the company, which is being liquidated after its spectacular collapse, was sabotaged in a hostile take- over bid. The JSE suspended Amalia Gold Mining on March 5 after the share lost 95% of its […]
Nick Cumming-Bruce President Bacharuddin Jusuf Habibie’s enthusiasm is infectious, but his head- spinning monologues have the power to wear anyone down – as Margaret Thatcher discovered while drumming up business in Indonesia. Purposeful as ever on a mid-1980s visit, she strode around the Bandung aviation plant with Habibie trotting beside her, talking furiously. Visibly flagging, […]
Alex Duval Smith in Zambezi, western Zambia In the darkness of the mud-brick hut, the glint in the man’s eye was as piercing as the flashes of light from the half-dozen diamonds in his palm. “They will cost you 1,6-million kwatcha [R4 800]. At the moment, I can also sell you emeralds, gold dust and […]
Charlene Smith On March 16 1984, former president PW Botha met his Mozambican counterpart, Samora Machel, at the Nkomati River to sign an accord that effectively blackmailed Mozambique. Next month, on June 6, President Nelson Mandela and Machel’s succesor, President Jaoquim Chissano, will open the Maputo development corridor, strengthening relations between the two countries and […]
Chris Gordon The in-your-face style of marketing practised in downtown Luanda, Angola, is a normal hazard of life on the dishevelled and risky streets of the capital. Young men and children, mainly refugees from the provinces, sell anything from chewing gum to clothes, pushing it through car windows, following potential customers down the street, disbelieving […]
Anna Borzello in Kampala The 42 Sudanese prisoners sat at the edge of Entebbe airport. Despite spending more than a year in military prison, they looked in reasonable health – with the exception of a man who was said to have gone mad in captivity. A Sudanese government delegation arrived by jet from Khartoum and […]