Mungo Soggot and Andy Duffy A number of policemen charged with torturing suspects in custody – in some cases with electric shocks – have not been suspended while awaiting trial. The Independent Complaints Directorate (ICD) – the police watchdog which has received 63 complaints of police torture over the past year – has confirmed to […]
Is it true that the only feasible agenda in politics today is a right-wing agenda? Twenty years ago, the question would have been ridiculous. Every liberal democracy courted a left agenda, in the government or in the mainstream opposition. To be on the left meant, at a minimum, embracing three commitments which those on the […]
Swapna Prabhakaran Durban has a long way to go before it becomes an undisputed party capital of the world, but it can certainly dream. “Imagine, if you will, 4 000 drummers in one stadium in Durban beating the various rhythms of the world, while thousands more drummers join in via satellite link from around the […]
Tony Mechin As the leaders of the Zimbabwean Internet industry entered the Harare International conference centre in January for the opening of Internet@frica98, the country’s first Internet show, looming in their minds was the thought that the show billed as the “biggest Internet, intranet, cyber conference and exhibition in Southern Africa” was going to be […]
Sechaba ka’Nkosi Labour and business are becoming increasingly impatient with the government’s reluctance to set a date for the long- awaited presidential jobs summit between the government, organised labour and business. The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) and Business South Africa (BSA) are ready and waiting for the summit, but say they are […]
Penny Siopis’s new show enacts a dialogue between beauty and cruelty, between private and public, writes Tracy Murinik Quietly, to Chopin, two breasts bathed in blood-red paint dip and resurface as if by lunar pull. Beautiful, and slightly comical, this video seems to engage in ambivalent dialogue with Queen Cakes, a pair of “cup-cake” breasts […]
Charlene Smith South African shares continue to attract strong foreign interest as nervous investors scuttle away from South-East Asian markets – all of which is having a positive impact on unit trusts and managed portfolios. But it may be too early to bring out the champagne. Tony Bell, head of fund management at Nedcor Investment […]
Peter Frost On stage in Cape Town Retro-shows. You’ve got to hate them. The Beatles, Stones, Rock’n’Roll, Abba. The peddling of a simpler, sweeter tune to an audience desiring the sanctity of an understandable past. Big business in South Africa for years now, and well-received by suburban audiences, if not critics who fail to see […]
John SeilerSOUTH AFRICA, LIMITS TO CHANGE: THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF TRANSITION by Hein Marais (Zed/UCT Press, R150) Hein Marais is not the first observer of post-apartheid South Africa to point to the burgeoning African professional and entrepreneurial classes and their conspicuous consumption patterns. The recent book Comrades in Business captures this dynamic pithily in its […]
Angella Johnson There is much less of Louis Luyt these days – 18kg to be precise. The beleaguered rugby boss was in defiant, if slightly subdued mood, as he confessed to a room of Johannesburg businessmen that the pressures facing him had led to rapid weight loss. Just hours before he was expected to face […]