The Wild Coast SDI is setting local communities against each other, report Thembela Kepe, Lungisile Ntsebeza and Ben Cousins Simmering beneath the surface of the Wild Coast Spatial Development Initiative (SDI), announced with great fanfare last month, are conflicts and tensions that could blow the much- vaunted investment initiative sky high. In some areas a […]
house World-renowned palaeo-anthropologist Professor Phillip Tobias discusses why it would be disastrous to build a casino near Sterkfontein Valley Since the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation’s (Unesco) general conference adopted a convention on the protection of the world’s cultural and natural heritage on November 16 1972, 506 properties worldwide have been inscribed on […]
Libby Young `Salaam za Afajiri. Nawatakia wote siku nzuri yenye mafanikio mema tuu,’ says Nuru.” It’s just an ordinary statement in Swahili. But what makes it different is that it’s posted on the Internet. The Internet, we all know, is almost entirely colonised by English, or more accurately, American culture, the same one that has […]
Kader Asmal and Mike Muller The content and the cloak-and-dagger presentation of the article “Damn dams, look in your own backyard” (Monitor, April 30 to May 7), alleging powerful opposition to the Lesotho Highlands Project by unnamed Alexandra individuals, need to be tested and placed in context. Much of what is said in the name […]
Charl BlignautOn stage in Johannesburg There is a bizarre moment in the Johannesburg Market Theatre/Stockholm Stadtsteater co-production of August Strindberg’s 1901 tragi-comedy Dance of Death when the subtle, classic lighting design suddenly spins out of orbit and transforms the stage into a discotheque, John Kani’s cantankerous Captain thrusting his arm in the air like a […]
Suzy Bell An advert running in the local Durban newspapers has caused quite a stir among some verkrampte readers, who have deemed it perverted and pornographic. It may be vaguely shocking or clichd titillation, but it’s also an artistic image. Two of the Fantastic Flying Fish dancers are surrounded by a soft pink glow, created […]
living Expelled ANCleader Sifiso Nkabinde walks free on 18 charges of murder and the question is posed: who should be afraid this time? Ann Eveleth reports More than a dozen people died in KwaZulu-Natal hot spots within days of the acquittal of political wildcard Sifiso Nkabinde last Thursday. None of the deaths – one in […]
Victoria Brittain The former prime minister of Rwanda has become the first person to plead guilty to charges relating to the 1994 genocide in which a million people were killed within three months. At the United Nations’s tribunal in Arusha, Tanzania, last week Jean Kambanda admitted genocide, conspiracy to commit genocide, direct and public incitement […]
Efforts to ensure fair play in sports have not proved an outstanding success, says John Duncan It is one of the biggest contests in world sport: the prize for winning, and the cost of taking part, are measured in millions of dollars. But it takes place not on a track or in a swimming pool […]
Mungo Soggot and Andy Duffy A number of policemen charged with torturing suspects in custody – in some cases with electric shocks – have not been suspended while awaiting trial. The Independent Complaints Directorate (ICD) – the police watchdog which has received 63 complaints of police torture over the past year – has confirmed to […]