Ferial Haffajee The cocktail of a showbiz doyenne, an African princess and a struggle lawyer can only yield interesting results. This combination has seen African Media Entertainment (AME) cause quite a stir on the stock exchange and in the entertainment and film industries. From their offices at the MTN Sundome outside Johannesburg, David Dison (AME’s […]

Last week, Matthew van der Want argued that we should be ashamed of the success of `clichd’ band Just Jinger. Diane Coetzer disagrees At least Matthew van der Want has the one characteristic always admired in the surfers who took to Umhlanga’s most lethal waves: pluck. But, in this case, the word applies less to […]

In 1971 Germaine Greer caused a storm with her book The Female Eunuch. Now she has decided to write a sequel. Katherine Viner asks why It has taken 27 years, but it looks like we’ve got it: the sequel to The Female Eunuch. It was announced recently that Germaine Greer has received an $800 000 […]

Alex Duval Smith Evidence of PW Botha’s personal role in ordering bomb attacks and killings to thwart anti- apartheid activity was revealed at this week’s trial of the former state president. The sensational minutes of top- secret meetings in the 1980s, obtained from the national archives by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, confirm claims that […]

Sexy Boys gang leader Michael Booysen has an uncanny gift for silencing witnesses and staying out of jail. Andy Duffy reports The investigation into the gang murder that triggered one of the most brutal conflicts on the Cape Flats is a case study in the many flaws in the state’s law enforcement armoury. The police […]

Andy Duffy The group behind the controversial Aids drug, Virodene PO58, has so far spent around R1- million on the drug, including paying its manager roughly R150 000 for three months’ part- time work. Cryopreservation Technologies (CPT) refuses to divulge its funding sources, beyond its 10 feuding shareholders. But the extent of the expenditure, which […]

Tangeni Amupadhi South Africa’s police watchdog is probing the handling of the slaying of six-month old Angelina Zwane on a Benoni plot this week. Advocate Neville Melville, the executive director of the Independent Complaints Directorate, has dispatched a team of two to investigate why the farmer involved in the shooting was not arrested immediately after […]

A paediatrician’s love of orchids led to the discovery that big doses of garlic could triumph over infection, writes Michael Nurok The Roman statesman Cicero advised that one should eat to live, not live to eat. Little did he know that more than 2 000 years later, gravely ill patients at Cape Town hospitals might […]

Shot dead at a taxi rank this week, James Zulu is more likely to be remembered as an Inkatha warlord than the great leader he could have been, writes Jesper Strudsholm The South Coast Herald once branded James Zulu “a warlord”. Zulu threatened to take the editor to court for defamation, but the paper was […]

Despite facing stringent budget cuts, the military has paid out hefty merit bonuses – mainly to white officers, writes Mungo Soggot The Ministry of Defence is probing the armed forces’ decision to pay officers R77-million in performance bonuses, nearly all of which went to white officers of the former South African Defence Force (SADF). Amid […]