Marthali Brand went to the opening of Graceland, the garish new casino in Mpumalanga Why is it that all roads to South African casinos lead through squatter camps? On my way to the opening of the first fully functional casino in the new South Africa, all I could think of as our luxury coach travelled […]
Donna Block : Share World Not too long ago, Latin America’s stock markets were like the Brazilian carnival dancers: sexy with a whole lot of shaking going on. From 1986 to 1996 no emerging markets were hotter than the Latinos. But the region once described as the emerging-market poster child has grown warts and facial […]
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 […]
Dan Glaister : First Person John Bayley has written a moving elegy to his wife, the writer Iris Murdoch, in the New Yorker magazine. It is a tale of two swimming trips to the same river near Oxford, United Kingdom. Two trips punctuated by a space of 40 years, and haunted by Alzheimer’s disease. “With […]
Brenda Atkinson If you’ve been waiting to exhale ever since the grade-school camerawork of Avenues swung its way across SABC 3; if you’re still wondering why paying your TV licence seems the wrong thing to do; if you’re considering ditching your M-Net subscription, don’t panic yet. e-tv, the hot and politically sound channel that snatched […]
Steve Gordon : A Second Look The Gift to the Nation concerts last weekend disappointed not so much in what they were, but in what they were not. Boasting South Africa’s biggest-ever artist billing, we squandered the opportunity to assert and affirm our nation, our voice, our identity. Mega-concerts are notoriously difficult to organise, and […]
George Steiner EXPLAINING HITLER by Ron Rosenbaum (Macmillan) It may well be that I am not the right reviewer for this book. Ron Rosenbaum places me and my novel, The Portage to San Christobal of AH, among the principal players in his dark tale. Explaining Hitler, a highly personal study of those who have sought […]
Death was the uninvited guest at a wedding in Richmond this week, turning joy into grief. Sechaba ka’Nkosi reports Doyi Shezi came home to Esimozomeni in Richmond last week to prepare for his second-youngest daughter’s wedding. On Saturday, he performed all the traditional marriage rituals at his homestead and handed his daughter Nonhlanhla to her […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Friday 10.30PM. THE South African Footplate Staff Association has agreed to suspend its strike of train drivers, ticket collectors and guards which left millions of commuters stranded around the country on Friday, and created chaos on the roads. The breakthrough was a result of intervention by the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation […]
Belinda Beresford Employees of one of the country’s largest banks, Nedcor, have been using legally questionable tactics – ranging from impersonating policemen to threatening arrest – to intimidate petty debtors. Nedcor says such tactics are not part of its debt-collection effort and the matter is being looked into. But a Mail & Guardian investigation has […]