Lords Neil Manthorp Cricket Lords is a funny place. The funniest moment of South Africa’s last visit in 1994 involved, almost inevitably, Fanie de Villiers. The Afrikaans school teacher cum part-time amateur car mechanic had reached the pinnacle of the game when he arrived in England and began preparations to represent his country, in a […]

Andy Duffy The University of the Western Cape (UWC) slapped a court order on its workers this week to snuff out an uprising sparked by its management’s cost-cutting proposals. The Labour Court in Johannesburg issued an urgent interdict against the National Education, Health and Allied Workers’ Union (Nehawu) and its UWC representatives, after dozens of […]

Ann Eveleth The apartheid-era homeland system and rural “betterment schemes” were the worst causes of land degradation, according to a rapid appraisal of land resources conducted in the run-up to World Desertification Day on Wednesday. The study forms part of South Africa’s National Action Programme to implement the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification. The […]

Mduduzi Dlamini CD of the week Boom Shaka have come a long way since the release of their debut single, It’s About Time, late in 1993, and the subsequent album of that name. The follow-up, It’s Our Game (No Need to Claim), was luke warmly received. Now we have their third album, Words of Wisdom, […]

A special correspondent in Abuja There were few tears and fewer obsequies for General Sani Abacha, the late and brutal president of Nigeria. Wrapped in a sheet and carried to his home town of Kano in the cargo hold of a Nigerian air force jet, he arrived too late even to be buried before evening […]

Ferial Haffajee The old-style politics of the Western Cape have not deterred black business in the province from taking a step into the new economy. Brimstone, a leading empowerment company, will launch on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) next month. It is led by a cadre of comrades in business including former struggle bookkeeper Mustaq […]

Most people who see Robin Williams loathe him. Sarah Gristwood asks if he’s really that bad The jokes aren’t that funny. On Albert Einstein: “There’s even a theory that his first wife came up with the theory of relativity. Which would make it the theory of relatives.” On film flying: “The harness shorts are like […]

Barbara Ludman ROADKILL by Kinky Friedman (Faber & Faber, R69,99) There have been many books featuring the author as amiable detective, once the main man in a country and western band, now ensconced in a New York loft with a cat, a good supply of cigars and a singing espresso machine. The Kinky Friedman saga […]

Chris Gordon As increasing Unita military activity is reported across Angola, the United Nations has imposed a fresh set of conditional sanctions on Angola’s intransigent rebel movement, in what is now a bid to avert serious conflict. These sanctions will come into force on June 25 if Unita does not surrender its headquarter towns and […]

Joe Hanlon A SECOND LOOK `Greater humility” is needed, admitted the World Bank’s chief economist and senior vice- president, Joseph Stiglitz, in a speech in which he called for an end to “misguided” policies imposed from Washington. Stiglitz’s condemnation of the “Washington Consensus” and the conditions imposed on poor countries must raise fundamental questions about […]