OWN CORRESPONDENT, Harare | Friday 10.00PM. THE Zimbabwean government on Friday gazetted sweeping new regulations to control rallies and marches, intended to increase the state’s control over political expression. In future, organisers will have to seek police permission in writing a week prior to events, specifying their purpose, and the business and details of proposed […]
John Grobler The South West African People’s Organisation (Swapo) leadership is expected to propose amending the Namibian Constitution this month to give President Sam Nujoma a third term of office. The Constitution restricts the president to two terms, but at the Swapo extraordinary congress, set to take place at the end of August, party stalwarts […]
Andrew Worsdale Djibril Diop Mambety, Senegal’s major visionary film-maker, died last week after a long fight against throat cancer. Mambety was, without doubt, Africa’s most fanciful film-maker – the only man who treated African stories with the lateral cinematic vision they crave. Starting his movie-making in 1968 with Contras-City, dubbed the first African comedy, the […]
Ferial Haffajee Membership of The Network is coveted. It’s the hottest club in town and counts the country’s leading business, intellectual and political talents in its midst. The Network has reportedly come out of the closet, partying last week to celebrate the appointment of Tito Mboweni as Reserve Bank governor-designate. It was as much a […]
Mungo Soggot The state oil company has slashed the number of charges and dropped all fraud allegations against suspended chief oil trader Kobus van Zyl, who is due to be disciplined in the next few weeks. Van Zyl was publicly ousted in March 1997 by the Minister of Minerals and Energy, Penuell Maduna, triggering the […]
Richard Hall Joseph Conrad described one of his villains as a “papier-mch Mephistopheles”. That was the image of Tiny Rowland, who has died aged 80. His secretive nature and mocking smile seemed to fit perfectly with Edward Heath’s descriptive tag: “An unpleasant and unacceptable face of capitalism”. Despite his Old Etonian airs, Rowland was born […]
Richmond There tends to be a false assumption that firm or tough government is conservative government and, as such, inimical to the liberal principles enshrined in our Bill of Rights. For that reason, perhaps, those who take pride in the foundations of the new South Africa contained in our Constitution would see a declaration of […]
The new municipal structures Bill negates municipalities’ rights to govern themselves, writes John Sewell The South African Constitution contains many glowing phrases, and none is as powerful to local politicians as Section 151(3): “A municipality has the right to govern, on its own initiative, the local government affairs of its community.” That section has been […]
Anne Holmes went on an unusual trip to get books to deprived rural schools in KwaZulu- Natal Red mud churned madly on a remote hillside in KwaZulu-Natal. Men shouted instructions at each other, and passing schoolgirls shrieked and giggled at the unusual spectacle. It was certainly not your typical rural scenario. A dilapidated minibus bogged […]
Tangeni Amupadhi Dan Mabote, accused of raping, abducting and then killing seven-year-old Mamokgethi Malebana, may soon get his just reward. But family and friends of Mamokgethi say people who aided her killing, albeit inadvertently, will get off scot-free. “I blame the people who granted him bail,” says Mamokgethi’s mother, Joyce Malebana. “I want something to […]