Zwelithini-ka Mvelase Frankly, if South Africans respected and preserved what’s theirs, with as much jealousy as Americans do, there would be enough greats to fill volumes. Whether those names were crooks or saints, wouldn’t matter a dime. This flits past my mind as I sit sipping gin with die ouens and – boom! – we […]
Lesley Cowling When I spotted the neat little Honda Ballade, all sparkling in mint white, parked alongside Jan Smuts Avenue at the plush premises of Car Gallery, I didn’t think of all those snide jokes about used-car salesmen. The car was exactly like the much- loved Honda stolen from me two months before, so I […]
The Internet feels to many of its more spiritually-minded proponents like a hardwiring of human consciousness. If and when poor people and developing nations get access to these technologies, we will all have the means, at least electronically, to access one another’s information, opinions, and feelings. Although it will certainly occur more subtly than in […]
Chris Gordon Unita is continuing to recapture small areas in the Angolan countryside on a daily basis, sowing terror to reach their objectives. Diplomats in Luanda believe Unita leader Jonas Savimbi now wants the Lusaka protocols renegotiated, with a better deal for Unita. Savimbi described the protocols as being the destruction of Unita. They should […]
Iden Wetherell An understanding of diplomacy, it would seem, is not a requirement for South Africa’s diplomats serving abroad. One based in Harare has made such a nuisance of himself, he faces the rare penalty of being sent home for good. Jabu Buthelezi is, in fact, an employee of the Department of Home Affairs. But […]
Ann Eveleth Recruited into the United Democratic Front in 1989 and booted out of the African National Congress eight years later, United Democratic Movement general secretary Sifiso Nkabinde is a classic case study of the theory that it’s better to have someone inside your tent pissing out than outside pissing in. It took a virtual […]
Howard W French Rebel forces in the Democractic Republic of Congo consolidated their hold on Wednesday on much of the eastern regions of the country, and the names of civilian leaders who might replace the embattled President Laurent-Dsir Kabila if the uprising succeeds began to circulate for the first time. In the clearest indication so […]
Suzanne Wilton and Sasha Nagy Canadian fugitive Patrick Steven Ryan’s ties to extreme right-wing groups in South Africa have become part of a Calgary police investigation into his role in the violent armed robbery of an armoured car last March. Ryan, whose connections to white- supremacist groups are also part of the investigation, visited South […]
at bay Ferial Haffajee It is a peaceful Saturday afternoon at a women’s shelter in the inner city in Johannesburg. Two women sit in the lounge and chat to a friend who is ironing. There is a calm about the place – it is here that battered women find refuge from abusive relationships and forge […]
Ferial Haffajee The wife of the SABC editor who commissioned the soapie Avenues stars in the programme and had a leading role in its casting and scripting. Penny Rodel also rents office space from A&P Productions, which makes the weekly soap. She used the name Penny Smith for this programme alone. Pieter de Vos, the […]