MONDAY, 6.30PM: THE strategic Somali town of Baidoa was on Monday once again in the hands of the militias of Hussein Mohamed Aidid, following a weekend of fighting. But the militias’ opponents, the Rahanwein Resistance Army, claim still to control the town’s airport. Baidoa is 150km north of Mogadishu and was the proposed venue for […]
MONDAY, 6.00PM: PRESIDENT Blaise Compaore of Burkina Faso on Monday called for discussion rather than war between Ethiopia and Eritrea. Compaore made his call in opening the summit meeting of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU). He will assume chairmanship of the OAU at the end of the summit, the body’s 34th. Compaore also complimented […]
Suzy Bell Should South African fashion be fun, or should it reflect urban decline? Debbie Reynolds, producer of the glamorous annual fashion event, the Durban Designer Collection (DDC) and lifestyle editor of the Independent on Saturday said of this year’s contest: “The brief to the designers and the judges was directional fashion. They were looking […]
Andy Duffy Sibusiso Bengu hates the spotlight, and it’s not hard to see why. Pinned down last week on prime-time TV, the minister of education resorted to pathos to get himself off the hook. “It isn’t my fault,” Bengu pleaded, after being confronted with yet more evidence that education is going down the tube. It’s […]
Andy Capostagno The row over who really won the Super 12, the Canterbury Crusaders or the referees, refuses to die down. It seems that whereas in the past, a chorus of “Who’s the bastard in the black” to the tune of Guide Me Oh Thou Great Redeemer was deemed sufficient to let the man in […]
Suzy Bell On show in Durban Eduoard Manet would have been proud. Reclining Olympia-like for the opening of her exhibition at Durban’s NSA Gallery was post-modernist babe – and seriously talented artist – Carol- Anne Gainer. With her deep penetrating gaze, this sensual and spiritual young artist successfully claimed her own private space in a […]
Mungo Soggot The state tea company has quietly axed its managing director after a disciplinary inquiry headed by a retired high court judge found him guilty of financial impropriety. Sapekoe suspended Mike Cherry three months ago and fired him last week. The low-profile company has clung to its apartheid-era penchant for secrecy and sought to […]
Jacques Pauw, who implicated Ferdi Barnard in the murder of David Webster, reflects on the failure of the law to put away those who sent him to kill It was in the autumn of 1992 that I came face to face with Ferdinand Barnard for the first time. I had stood outside his Roodepoort home, […]
Ruaridh Nicoll He may be yellow, non-existent and have deformed hands, but Bart Simpson, cartoon dude most excellent, is one of Time magazine’s 20 most influential artists and entertainers of our century. The American news magazine has released its second top 20 list, this time looking at the arts, in the run- up to naming […]
David Shapshak Now that Pakistan has shown the world that it could quietly purify enough plutonium for the five nuclear devices it detonated recently – and probably enough for many more – attention is turning to how to divorce nuclear weapons from nuclear power plants. And while conventional nuclear power stations have had a bad […]