David Beresford It was j’accuse flavoured with a dash of mea culpa when Adriaan Vlok this week appeared before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to explain how he contributed to “law and order” by blowing up office blocks and cinemas. Vlok, who was minister of law and order between 1986 and 1994 – the most […]
Charl Blignaut On stage in Johannesburg In the year 2013 AD, planet earth will witness that old nuclear havoc: the final, inevitable, apocalyptic spectacle of destruction. A blinding flash, pandemonium, rancid corpses twisting with the hot breeze . But all will not be lost. No siree. Because way above the messy implosion there rests a […]
Nick Varley CD of the week Way back, when The Smiths were emerging as the greatest English talent of the Eighties, they took another Manchester indie band out as support on tour. Now, 13 years later, all those who have come across James in a subsequent incarnation – from much-lauded indie kids to derided, alleged […]
Orange Farm – to build houses Evidence wa ka Ngobeni A four-roomed house was once an impossible dream for an unemployed single mother living in an Orange Farm shack. But this week Sinaila Shabani and her four children moved into their dream house – built by 22 volunteer Irish students and residents of the sprawling […]
The English Academy of South Africa is inviting entries for the FNB Vita/English Academy Poetry Prize for a Translation into English. Among the conditions is that the translation be no longer than 50 lines and be written in the last three years. The closing date is September 30, and entries should be sent to the […]
Anthea Garman experienced the !Xoe Site Specific exhibition around Nieu Bethesda in the Karoo `Do you have a believable sense of place?” is the simple, cheeky, and only bit of written information about the first installation we stop to see outside Nieu Bethesda. This is artwork number five by Marco Cianfanelli and we’ve chosen to […]
Wally Mbhele Truth and Reconciliation Commission officials claim police Superintendent Frans ”Lappies” Labuschagne, accused of a series of assassinations of senior African National Congress members in Swaziland, has applied for amnesty. Labuschagne, also suspected of involvement in setting up foreign affairs director Robert McBride for arrest in Mozambique, is believed to have announced this bombshell […]
THURSDAY, 10.00PM: BONGANI MAGUBANE, a 36-year-old deputy school principal from Sahlumbe, KwaZulu-Natal, has died after allegedly being assaulted with a wheel spanner during an argument with police task force members near the Mooi River toll plaza on Monday afternoon. According to his brother, Themba Magubane, Bongani was travelling from Durban to Ladysmith when there was […]
THURSDAY, 11.00AM: THE wildcat strike by Johannesburg International Airport baggage handlers has been called off after worker representatives, Apron Services and The Airports Company of South Africa agreed on Wednesday night that tenders will be invited for the airport’s ramp-handling operations. The strike, which disrupted many flights, started early on Wednesday morning when baggage handlers […]
WEDNESDAY, 9.30AM: FORMER Bophuthatswana president Lucas Mangope was on Tuesday found guilty on some 90 charges of fraud and theft totalling R2,8-million, most of which was stolen from his own Bahurutshe-Bo-Manyane tribe. Judge Tom Mullins will deliver judgment on the remaining 89 fraud and theft charges, totalling about R18-million, on Wednesday. Mangope has been found […]