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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
A new imaging service was launched last week on the Internet, courtesy of American and Russian military satellites. Duncan Campbell takes a peek By the end of this year, the world’s largest online database will be offering browse and click satellite pictures of much of the Earth’s surface and all of its largest towns. The […]
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 […]
Brenda Atkinson I am no fan of sport. I don’t give a toss for its nation-building bumf, I begrudge it its unreserved corporate support, and it brings out the misanthrope in me. But put Bafana Bafana on the box and I’m all patriotic pride and good humour. I get butch and yell things like, “Why […]
Tangeni Amupadhi and Wally Mbhele Former Civil Co-operation Bureau (CCB) operative Johan Niemoller, named in court this week as the mastermind behind a recent spate of arms heists from military bases, has a long history of supplying military equipment and other assistance to the Angolan rebel movement, Unita. Niemoller was in 1995 named as the […]