Swapna Prabhakaran A quiet and mostly unseen battle has been raging for months around KwaZulu-Natal’s waste dumps. Two waste dumps were officially closed down last year and another collapsed in a disaster that left the province with a hazardous waste-disposal crisis. The chaos began after floods and mudslides last September wreaked havoc with the province’s […]

Jack Lundin: PERSONAL HISTORY Until a few weeks ago you could have seen him on the corner of Pretoria Street and Quartz: filthy dirty, stinking of glue, begging from cars. Twelve years old and one of the small army of Hillbrow street urchins. My notes on Elias start at 9.50 am on October 1 1996, […]

Sechaba ka’Nkosi Disillusionment with the African National Congress and hopes of pulling off surprises in next year’s general election made up the vision that guided the United Democratic Movement at its springboard first national congress at the weekend. It became evident that while the black leaders of the party would launch a battle to lure […]

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 […]

Province ANC Mukoni T Ratshitanga Northern Province Premier, Ngoako Ramathlodi, who breathed a sigh of relief when he regained his position as provincial chair of the African National Congress last weekend, faces a tough challenge of rooting out ethnic tensions. The province is made up of three former homelands – Lebowa, Venda and Gazankulu – […]

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 […]

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 […]

As I read Xolela Mangcu’s heartfelt ode (Crossfire, June 5 to 11) to the need for national values, I see the jets roaring over the Union Buildings, leaving behind in their thundering blur a rainbow of colours. Presidents, ministers and generals stand stony-faced, with hand on heart, framed by the deafening adulation of people waving […]

Alex Dodd Strange how we’re so often blind to our own artistic treasures. Many of us speed past one or two works of wall art every morning on the way to work. Meanwhile in Holland they’re busy lighting up the lives of pedestrians and commuters. Led by public artist and popular Jo’burg DJ Nicky Blumenfeld, […]