Donna Block European markets jumped ahead. Asia hit an 11-year low. The Athens exchange has a positive outlook ahead of privatisation, while the Heng Seng has lost 2% of its value. Welcome to the stock markets of the world. What does it all mean and what is the Heng Seng anyway? The Heng Seng is […]
FRIDAY, 8.30AM: DEPUTY President Thabo Mbeki on Thursday added his voice to Wednesday’s criticism by President Nelson Mandela of the South African Communist Party. Addressing the SACP’s 10th annual congress, Mbeki berated the party for the ease with which it has levelled “charges of treachery” against the African National Congress, adding that the ANC does […]
South African Airways (SAA) flights on the London route appear to be full of fun. First there was the couple copulating in business class. Now there is the strange story of the berserk poet. A court in the United Kingdom has been hearing evidence of how the poet, one John Bagwell, aged 42, erupted into […]
Wonder Hlongwa A former mayor of Pongola in KwaZulu-Natal has been made to pay King Goodwill Zwelithini a fine of 25 cattle to apologise for referring to him as “a certain man”. Derrick Sutherland, a Pongola businessman, delivered the cattle to the king’s Khangela palace in Nongoma this week to apologise for “not respecting the […]
Andy Duffy The daughter of a founding member of the Pan Africanist Congress has been stranded in Germany for nine years because she cannot prove she is South African. Joyce Vuyiswa Khayana’s struggle for a South African passport has been supported by sworn affidavits from high-ranking African National Congress and PAC officials. Even the president’s […]
Suzy Bell On show in Durban Never has Jung been so playful, and yet so arresting. Last Tango in Heaven, produced by Durban’s pioneering Backlash Theatre Company, was written by that most underrated Pretoria playwright, Mario Scheiss. He wrote the play in four days and then, dramatically, on June 2, at the age of 64, […]
Robert Kirby: Loose Cannon When your weekend newspaper starts to depress your spirits, don’t just reach out automatically for the brandy bottle or the Prozac, there are easier ways to shed the gloom. An excellent selection of low comedy is to be enjoyed merely by turning to the Appointments section in the paper. Reading through […]
Brett Hilton-Barber Racial differences between people may be a more recent phenomenon than was previously believed. In a paper presented to the Dual Congress of Human Biology and Palaeontology at Sun City this week, renowned academic Dr Christopher Stringer suggested that white skin colour probably emerged only 30 000 years ago. This is some 30 […]
Charl Blignaut On stage in Johannesburg Pieter Toerien’s Alhambra theatre is the perfect setting for a South African staging of Alan Ayckbourne’s classic Absurd Person Singular. It’s a trademark Ayckbourne nudge-nudge wink-wink; “oh-don’t-worry- about-Tom-he’s-out-there-playing-with-Dick kind of farce”, and the three couples that inhabit the three kitchens during three Christmas eve parties in the play are […]
Who is . . . Sarah Amin? Nick Hopkins and Giles Foden The last time Sarah Kyolaba Amin commanded this much attention, her life was different. As the fifth wife of the former Ugandan dictator Idi Amin, she lived in splendour and travelled the world meeting dignitaries. She was even granted an audience with the […]