With the trade talks on track, the EU’s first man in South Africa is returning to Brussels confident his time has been well spent, writes Madeleine Wackernagel Erwan Four has a knack for leaving a posting just before disaster strikes — once in Venezuela, prior to the 1989 riots; and again in Mexico, ahead of […]

Ann Eveleth Suspended Transnet executive director Joe Ndhlela’s fate will be decided next Tuesday after an internal probe found he committed several acts of misconduct and impropriety. The transport parastatal’s board of directors is due to meet on Tuesday to consider disciplinary action against Ndhlela after an internal disciplinary inquiry found he committed an act […]

Wally Mbhele and Wonder Hlongwa The Truth and Reconciliation Commission may subpoena Inkatha Freedom Party leader Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi to cross-examine him on the IFP’s links with the apartheid government. Officials of the commission confirmed that Buthelezi would be questioned on the basis of the “Walter Felgate archives” — documents handed by his former confidant […]

Ben Laurance When Chris Patten was running Hong Kong, he was fond of dropping a smug little statistic into any conversation about the Hong Kong and Chinese economies. The colony, with six million people squeezed into a sweaty little corner of Asia, was about to achieve one-fifth of the economic output of its enormous neighbour […]

Raparazzi! Residents of Pretoria whose slumbers were disturbed by the squeal of car tyres on Wednesday night might be interested to know that the noise signalled the arrival of the paparazzi phenomenon in the capital. The high-speed car chase was precipitated by Rapport newspaper, whose photographers have been camped for a fortnight outside the home […]

Threats from Afrikaner cultural organisations almost put an end to a controversial art exhibition. Charl Blignaut reports A proposed Pretoria art exhibition has sparked a battle that reads like a chapter from an account of a modern-day Boer War. The future of a controversial exhibition by Johannesburg-based artist Kendell Geers is hanging in the balance […]

Faried Esack Shamima Shaikh (37), South Africa’s leading Muslim gender equality activist, passed away in the early hours of January 8 at her home in Mayfair, Johannesburg. She had cancer. Shaikh left behind her husband, Naeem Jeenah, and two sons Minhaj (9) and Shir’ah (7). Shaikh was a member of the national executive committee of […]

South Africa has suffered a number of government scandals since liberation: Sarafina II,the Mpumalanga housing scam, Baleka Kgositsile’s driving licence, the Central Energy Fund (CEF) and Emanuel Shaw II … Few of them, however, point to failure of government in quite as stark a fashion as the scandal we break in this edition of the […]

the struggle Denis Herbstein Attempts to render the lives of solicitors more exciting than they actually are should be viewed with scepticism. But for Martin Bayer, who has died of a heart attack at the age of 66, the term “supporter of revolutionaries” would not be out of place. One of the few people who […]

Adam Haupt spoke to musician and world traveller DLow about his new album and his boempies hairstyle Many people in Portlands, Mitchells Plain, know the R&B singer DLow (Deen Louw) as the organiser of the Rhyme Unit Feed the Needy feeding scheme, which serves many people in the area. However, his two identities are not […]