Suzy Bell On show in Durban Totally disarming in tweety-bird yellow, casual cotton shirt teeming with tiny fish, a Zulu beaded choker resembling a Smartie box of colours, brass bangles, and a genteel, generous-hearted demeanor – that’s our poet/playwright/artist, Breyten Breytenbach. Being the Buddhist he is, if you swing the conversation to China, Tibet and […]
Mail & Guardian reporter The archbishop of Cape Town, the Reverend Njongonkulu Ndungane, is to present the world’s largest gathering of Anglican bishops with an explosive document suggesting the church take a fresh look at issues such as polygamy and euthanasia. The 24-page report, entitled Called to Full Humanity, is to head the agenda at […]
Mercedes Sayagues Controversial American entrepreneur James Blanchard has set his sights on including parts of the famed Inhaca island in his huge Mozambican theme park, despite the fact that he has yet to deliver on his grandiose scheme. Blanchard has asked the Maputo municipal council for a 276ha concession in Ponta Torres, the south-eastern peninsula […]
David Cesarani ISRAEL: A HISTORY by Martin Gilbert (Doubleday, R219,95) Israel’s 50th birthday celebrations are in disarray, a muddle produced by fiscal stringency and ideological confusion. Plans for costly, symbolic events have been scrapped amidst popular apathy. According to the Jerusalem Report, “There’s little sense of unity, and not really much agreement on what it […]
Ferial Haffajee One of the biggest problems with solving unemployment in South Africa is that the government does not know the scale of the crisis. Politicians and statisticians bicker about the real picture. Unemployment has not been costed to understand its impact on the bottom line. Neither have calculations been made to assess how people […]
Ferial Haffajee The ruby red BMW roadster races down the main road in Eldorado Park, past rows and rows of grim council houses. At full throttle, the front doors open and close to simulate a bird in flight. The Majimbos are in town – the gang’s symbol is a flying bird and Eldorado Park, south […]
David White The vacancy appears to be the job of your dreams, the pay is right, the prospects are good. But competition for the best posts is the fiercest. So which qualities do employers look for? What can you do to convince them that you, and not the 300 other applicants, are the right person […]
Andy Capostagno Rugby Deja vu. The Springbok captain is involved in negotiations to form a players’ union, Louis Luyt is in the news and euphoria over Springbok success has died down to a hoarse croak. Take yourself back to August 1995, less than two months after South Africa had won the World Cup. Louis Luyt […]
Phillip Kakaza strolled down Yeoville’s Rockey Street and noticed it is ready for reinvigoration Rockey Street, in the heart of Yeoville, is probably South Africa’s most famous jolling street, lined with watering holes and clubs, rocking till dawn. Some say it has gone downhill in recent years, but it still draws the crowds at night. […]
Tangeni Amuphadi A police bodyguard assigned to Minister of Transport Mac Maharaj found himself on the wrong side of the law when he tried to arrest a man who called him a ”kaffir”. Inspector Edmund Sekatane says he called fellow officers to assist when the man resisted arrest, but his white colleagues treated him like […]