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 […]
Bongani SiqokoHuman Rights Day Speech-making politicians and music groups turning air into sound will compete for attention in Sharpeville at this weekend’s commemoration of the Sharpeville massacre in 1960. Youth development and cultural education are firmly on the Human Rights Day a genda of the township-based Ideas Exchange International (IEI). IEI executive director Nicho Ntema […]
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 […]
Martin Kettle in Washington The city of Louisville in Kentucky boasts possibly the world’s only statue of Louis XVI of France – in honour of the man from whom it takes its name. It is doubly odd to find a statue of the last of the Bourbons in the middle of a mid-western state becau […]
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 […]
David Beresford At 10.12am on Thursday, President Nelson Mandela made constitutional history when he took the oath in Room 6E of the Pretoria High Court, submitting the executive to the scrutiny of the judiciary. Looking the epitomy of dignity in a charcoal suit, the president made a point of demonstrating his respect for the court […]
Alet van Rensburg The new civilian caretakers of Vlakplaas – former base of the notorious police C-10 hit squad – are interested in buying the farm from the government and turning it into a rehabilitation centre for “lost souls”. The old farmhouse on Vlakplaas is now filled with Louis and Lucia Smit’s furniture. They’ve turned […]
Shaun de Waal: International tour What does it all mean? Besides the obvious live band footage (treated or untreated), the series of images flashing past on the giant video screen that is arguably the most essential part of U2’s PopMart concert is an almost bewildering cornucopia of pop/ art iconicity. Perhaps it is unfair to […]
Mungo Soggot The offshore branch of embattled mining company Amalia is still enthusiastically punting the company’s London listing, trumpeting its exclusive deal to exploit Liberia’s mineral wealth – despite the fact Liberia has threatened to kill the deal. “It’s a $750-million deal – their main asset. It’s theirs unless there is a coup. Nobody can […]