Richard Williams: Movie of the week When Wim Wenders points to the change in the nature of violence in the mainstream cinema, he is stating the obvious. He says he made The End of Violence to get us thinking about how explicitly gruesome sights that would have been unthinkable 10 years ago appear to be […]
When the Minister of Minerals and Energy, Penuell Maduna, requested my resignation on March 10, it came as quite a surprise. The unceremonious manner in which my employment was terminated – “submit to me by fax your resignation with immediate effect and vacate the office you were occupying hitherto forthwith” – and the accusations levelled […]
Shopping mall development in the townships is about to undergo a revival – thanks to Richard Maponya, reports Charlene Smith Shopping mall developments have, in the past, failed in townships because they were targeted at a race group rather than people, says township retail guru Richard Maponya. That is set to change, he believes. In […]
Krisjan Lemmer The management at the Dorsbult Bar had to send out for fresh supplies of sickbags this week, what with all the heaving going on among patrons over the Robert McBride story. Our old friend “Suiker” Britz rushed to Maputo and announced it was his considere d and unbiased opinion that the young diplomat […]
Sechaba ka’Nkosi An African National Congress task team headed by Minister of Welfare and Population Development Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi to investigate a “communist plot” at its national congress last year has ignited a bitter internal wrangle between two factions of t he South African Communist Party. As the SACP prepares for its 10th national conference in […]
Sylvia Brownrigg THE COLLECTED STORIES by Paul Theroux (Penguin, R54,95) Paul Theroux will go anywhere. He will willingly explore the blighted territory of a failing marriage; the tangled jungle of a mad poet’s secret anti-Semitism; the belated sexual guilt of a Hindu. In this great slab of his short fiction, Theroux is bolde r than […]
Alex Duval Smith reports on the United States president’s visit to a continent reborn as a trading partner Bill Clinton’s six-nation tour of Africa next week – the first by a serving United States president for almost 20 years – will reward good book-balancers and strategic friends. But it will also lay bare mixed African […]
Charlene Smith As U2 “rattle and hum” their way through their second South African concert this weekend, a bitterly divided music industry argues for the crumbs from a financially squeezed R1-billion entertainment industry. While Computicket managing director Jeff Carel says big acts like U2 bring in small takings (but large credibility for concert promoters), Howard […]
David Beresford: Tribute to Basil Coetzee It’s hard to say a last goodbye to a musician; harder still when his gaunt face is in a coffin on a linoleum floor, his tenor saxophone – its silver patina worn through by his once-busy fingers – resolutely silent in its place of honour up on the stage. […]
FRIDAY, 9.00AM: THE North-West provincial government decided on Thursday to close Vryburg High School, scene of racial clashes between black and white pupils and parents. The scholl is effectively being closed early for the Easter holidays, which were to begin on April 1. Said David van Wyk, spokesman for North-West Premier Popo Molefe: “It was […]