It is hard to reconcile the current upheaval on the African continent with the optimistic scenario of imminent revival put about by the Clinton administration and its South African variant, Deputy President Thabo Mbeki’s notion of an African renaissance. Angola is poised to go back to war. Hutu refugees are being slaughtered in Eastern Congo […]
Peta Thornycroft STORIES are emerging about the dying days of Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of Congo, and how South African mercenaries and desperadoes tried to make a quick buck out of the tottering regime of Mobutu Sese Seko. As rebel leader Laurent Kabila’s men prepared their final march on Kinshasa, Mobutu loyalists were in […]
FILMGOERS can sup at a feast of independent cinema playing for the next two weeks in Johannesburg, arriving in Durban on July 15 and in Cape Town on July 28. Here are some of the best: The Funeral (Abel Ferrara, 1996) This 1930s-set gangster pic finds fierce and furiously transgressive director Ferrara on strangely penitent […]
FIVE lucky readers of the M&G’s books pages are winners in our giveaway of Edmund White’s brand new novel, The Farewell Symphony, published by Chatto &Windus. They are:Rose Cohen, Killarney; YFrame, Riviera; RHLloyd, Botha’s Hill; Mahluli Mngadi, Seapoint; and Kopano Ratele, Rondebosch. Congratulations and happy reading -your books are on their way to you. Look […]
FRIDAY, 10.30AM TRANSPORT Minister Mac Maharaj and his Public Enterprises counterpart Stella Sigcau on Thuesday announced a shortlist of three for the position of adviser on the restructuring of parastatal Airports Company. The shortlisted candidates are: SBC Warburg in partnership with accounting and consulting firm Gobodo; Standard Corporate and Merchant Bank with Morgan Stanley and […]
FRIDAY, 11.20AM: SOUTH AFRICAN and US Open champion Ernie Els struggled in the back nine and finished at 4-over 75 in the first round of the British Open on Thursday. Els said it was the toughest round he had ever played. “I played pretty well on the front line but then my start to the […]
Journalists in Somalia have to be wary … before publishing by photocopier. ALEX BELLOS reports from Mogadishu THE press in Britain is often referred to as the fourth estate. In Somalia – where uniquely there has been no government for six years – it is definitely the first. Mogadishu is an unlikely place to have […]
FRIDAY, 3.30PM The editor of the Kinshasa daily newspaper La Reference Plus has been interrogated by authorities in the Democratic Republic of Congo after the paper reported splits within the new regime. Andre Ipakala was released on Thursday, one day after being detained. He said he underwent a lengthy interrogation over the report on an […]
Now that the lights have been turned off and the circus has left town, it’s time to take a stone-cold sober look at the 1997 Standard Bank 1997 Standard Bank National Arts Festival. What went down in G’town … Gwen Ansell AFRICAN music started to look like hot property at the Grahamstown Festival – but […]
FRIDAY, 10.25AM: THE Springboks will tackle New Zealand in the Tri-nations rugby match at Ellis Park stadium on Saturday. South Africa has won only three of the 10 matches they have played against the All Blacks since their readmision into international rugby in 1992. “That factor is playing more on the minds of the experienced […]