Wonder Hlongwa Estranged Inkatha Freedom Party leader Sipho Mzimela may rejoin the African National Congress, according to political colleagues who say he has been seeking advice about where his political future lies. Mzimela would not comment this week, except to confirm that he is still an IFP MP and a member of the party. He […]
Suzy Bell Local music For someone who candidly admits to never listening to the radio, to CDs or to watching television, it’s with total integrity that Madala Kunene can announce: “I’m not influenced by anyone.” It is Kunene’s poetic dreams that inspire him. Take his song Abangoma, from his heavenly album Madala Kon’Ko Man. Kunene […]
Angella Johnson VIEW FROM A BROAD They call themselves Tupac – after the murdered American gangsta rap singer Tupak Shakur – and are the latest gang to terrorise Soweto’s womenfolk, whom they abduct and rape with apparent impunity. “Some of them are HIV-positive and they do these things in order to deliberately pass on the […]
forgiveness There was something awfully satisfying about that klap Gideon Nieuwoudt got on the back of his head this week. For those who missed the story as told by the South African Press Association, Nieuwoudt – a former security policeman particularly notorious in the Eastern Cape – had gone to the Port Elizabeth home of […]
Michael Brooks As if you didn’t have enough to worry about already, it turns out that we’re 100-million years overdue for a mass extinction. Keep watching the skies if you want some warning. When you see an eerie blue glow, slightly bigger than a full moon, it means that you’ve got just a few days […]
Max du Preez has never been in therapy, but he’s on the box again with a new current affairs programme. Alex Dodd reports `I’ve never seriously considered therapy,” says Max du Preez, who has spent his last two years making damn sure that the public got to see exactly what went on at the truth […]
Arnold Kemp in Paris Tour de France It was 9.30pm when the police came for Rodolfo Massi, entering his hotel by a back door. They searched his room and found corticoids in a case. They gave him time to shower and eat before taking him to the police station. Then they drove him north from […]
Anton Marshall On stage in Cape Town It’s a long drive out to the Old Barn. Nice angle for a story, I think, to talk about the proverbial long road for theatre in South Africa. Particularly for this group called the Barnstormers. I’ve never seen that name at any of the major theatre venues before, […]
James Sey The last week in July saw a flourish of high-profile events to launch the new University of the Witwatersrand Graduate School for the Humanities and Social Sciences. Conceived of as a productive and market-related new way of approaching humanities and social science tertiary education, the graduate school is seen as the flagship of […]
Can the Dalai Lama enlighten Western science, asks Michael Brooks As the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism, the Dalai Lama is accustomed to seeking enlightenment over deep philosophical issues. Recently, however, he had a new experience to contemplate as he watched a demonstration of the bizarre world of quantum physics. Anton Zeilinger, professor of experimental […]