After nearly a decade of remaining in the doldrums, the motor sector of the Johannesburg Stock Exchange has doubled in less than two years, with some listed companies still showing upward growth potential. However, the ride to its present level of over 9 000 has been volatile. Before the 1994 election the index remained mostly […]
Stephen Bierley questions the sincerity of two potential tennis champions May in Paris and the great names are lined up for the French Open: Chiroubles, Fleurie, Morgon, Moulin-a- Vent. And then there are the tennis players. The intense heat of Melbourne, the mayhem of Flushing Meadow and the unremitting pressure of Wimbledon seem a world […]
Mzilikazi wa Afrika Police are investigating allegations that taxi bosses in Mpumalanga employed 40 Mozambicans as hired assassins. Investigators say taxi bosses hired the Mozambicans as the foreigners would be harder to track down than local hired assassins. “Our intelligence unit has found out that the Mozambican hit men are armed with powerful automatic rifles,” […]
Stefaans Brmmer: A SECOND LOOK Nicholas Biwott is Kenya’s political bogeyman. The minister of state in the office of President Daniel Arap Moi has a reputation that embraces ruthless murder, kleptomaniacal patronage and cynical manipulation. Any edition of one of Kenya’s more adventurous journals is as likely as not to make reference to what they […]
Andrew Muchineripi Soccer When the World Cup draw was made in chilly Marseille last December, France and Denmark expressed happiness bordering on arrogance after being placed in the same group as minnows Saudi Arabia and South Africa. Recent events suggest it may not be quite so easy for the French and Danes with the Saudis […]
The male-to-male escort industry is booming, servicing clients who are typically middle- aged, affluent, white – and most often married. Charl Blignaut spends time at a whorehouse In the quiet street of a leafy suburb in the east of Johannesburg not even the next-door neighbours know that the house next door is a brothel. Why […]
Mzilikazi wa Afrika A Northern Province tuberculosis patient who disappeared from his hospital bed was found dead near the doctors’ quarters on Sunday morning, with his scrotum removed and his penis skinned. Police suspect that someone working at the Mokopane hospital, near Potgietersrus, lured Malesela Joseph Tshege (52) out of the TB ward in the […]
Krisjan Lemmer Squabbling continues unabated between the one-time “star” witness in the Winnie Madikizela-Mandela scandal, Katiza Cebekhulu, and his former mentor, Emma Nicholson, now dignified as Baroness Nicholson Of Winterbum (or something like that). Writing to The Guardian newspaper in Britain, Katiza complains that the dame continues to cling to the copyright to his own […]
Phillip Kakaza A melancholic nostalgia sweeps through Woza! – the Civic Theatre’s celebration of 40 years of South African musicals – as the soulful voices of Wendy Mseleku and Sibongile Mngoma and the tap-dancing feet of Somizi Mhlongo tour memory lane. King Kong’s blues number Back of the Moon and Ipi Ntombi’s Mama Thembu’s Wedding […]
Robert Kirby: Loose Cannon `One day you boys will find Latin phrases like these come in very useful,” alpaca-coated Brother H used to murmur as he savagely whipped our upturned hands with a thick leather whalebone-spined strap. Six hits. Three for the left, three for the right. A rider discipline to the hand- thrashings: learn […]