William Boot Deputy President Thabo Mbeki’s intervention this week in Lesotho’s election crisis may prove too little, too late to head off disaster in the beleaguered kingdom. Mbeki, Minister of Foreign Affairs Alfred Nzo and Minister of Defence Joe Modise secured agreement from both the governing Lesotho Congress for Democracy (LCD) and the country’s major […]
the bears Donna Block Fasten your seat belts, we’re in for a bumpy ride. The market chaos we have been witnessing this week is the result of Japan’s dithering with its economic policy. Japan, which not so long ago was the economic envy of the Western world, has plunged into recession and its economy is […]
Howard Barrell Leaders of agriculture and business joined forces to fight worsening crime this week – and to persuade desperate farmers and businessmen not to resort to unlawful protests against the government’s seeming inability to get to grips with the problem. “It is becoming increasingly difficult to prevent our members taking the law into their […]
Phillip Kakaza Jabu Khanyile is a composed and impassive man whose self-image is clearly important to himself and his audiences. He is a self-taught, spiritual singer who has been influenced by religion and African tradition. He was an active member of the Apostolic Zionist church at an early age and reckons he was caught by […]
Brenda Atkinson The programme preview of South Africa’s first free-to-air commercial television station was a Bondian event, slick with dress suits, French champagne, impeccably understated yet omnipresent waiters, oysters, and a subtle conspiratorial air. e.tv, the Warner Brothers-partnered broadcast competitor that has SABC and M-Net by the balls, last week invited media buyers to a […]
Andrew Worsdale Movie of the week Shushin-koyou-sei – “to be employed until you die” – is a Japanese expression for what is the life of the “salaryman”. For decades Japanese graduates joined companies and never left. Instead of firing employees who did not make the grade, businesses transferred them to subsidiaries or changed their job […]
Many of our readers will find the pictures of famine in southern Sudan which we have published deeply distressing. Some may feel that this is a visual invasion of privacy which should not be allowed. Others may wonder whether such appeals to our consciences are not just a short-term palliative: is there not a better […]
Matthew Krouse On the air in Johannesburg In the 1920s, when radio transmitters were switched on for the first time all over the world, live music was the main attraction. The immediacy of the medium made people feel so modern, so in-with-the-times. Suddenly, you didn’t actually have to be there, to be part of what […]
machine Andy Capostagno Golf It might be unkind to a fine tournament, but this week’s United States PGA Championship is likely to suffer by comparison. The PGA is older than the Masters and both Jack Nicklaus and Walter Hagen won it five times, so it comes highly recommended. But because the wise men of the […]
JUSTIN ARENSTEIN, Nelspruit | Friday 11.00pm. MPUMALANGA’S sacked deputy speaker, Cynthia Maropeng, was found guilty of self-enrichment and of bringing the African National Congress into disrepute by the party’s provincial disciplinary committee in Nelspruit on Friday. The three-man committee, headed by provincial finance MEC Jacques Modipane, tried Maropeng in her absence after she kept it […]