Robert Kirby: LOOSE CANNON At our peril we are all ignoring another fine example Dr Nkosazana Zuma has given us of audacious democratic management skills. Especially when it comes to applying discipline to insolent apartheid-residual control bodies, Nkosazana leads the way. As they say in the good book: if thine hand offends thee, cut it […]
Anna Borzello in Kampala A coalition force of Ugandan rebels, Sudanese government troops and former fighters of ousted Zairean president Mobutu Sese Seko is operating from bases in Garamba National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo, according to the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA). Garamba, in the north-east of Congo, borders Sudan to the […]
Lucy Hannan in Garissa It has taken a Cabinet minister’s threat to resign to make the Kenyan government launch an inquiry into allegations ofEpolice torture and sexual humiliation during an operation against bandits in North-Eastern province. Maalim Mohammed, a staunch supporter of President Daniel arap Moi since 1983, produced video evidence of torture in his […]
Brenda Atkinson Excuse me, I’m about to gush. The object of this critical affirmation is a 500-page directory that will raise the excluded and chronically confused cultural majority in South Africa to the minority ranks (such as they are) of the cognoscenti. A big welcome to the South African Handbook on Arts and Culture for […]
Jeremy Cronin: CROSSFIRE General Georg Meiring’s blunder in passing on to President Nelson Mandela a cock-and-bull story about a “left-wing” plot has got me thinking about Reserve Bank governor Chris Stals. What is the connection, you wonder? There have been persistent rumours about Stals’s role in the apartheid-era State Security Council. Little light has been […]
As the dust of an almost bewildering media storm finally begins to settle around Breyten Breytenbach’s Boklied, Charl Blignaut asks what the reaction to the play means One should have smelled it from a mile off, really, the faint whiff of scandal rising from the Boklied posters mingling with the cloying fragrance of potpourri and […]
Bongani Siqoko The clinic at Elomoya village, north of KwaZulu-Natal, which was built by the community almost three years ago, is still standing in long grass, unstaffed and unequipped. This means that for people to get proper health care, they have to walk 36km to the nearest Ndlangubo clinic or 45km to Gezinsila. After three […]
Don Maclennan’s new poetry volume, Solstice, has won him two awards. He spoke to Denise Rack Louw `I dislike interviews, but I enjoy conversations,” award-winning poet Don Maclennan tells me with a twinkle. I am visiting Maclennan at his Grahamstown home to find out more about the writer and his work – including Solstice (Snailpress), […]
Charlene Smith Minnie Mouse, Mickey Mouse, flying ducks and cheaply made chintzy porcelain with transfer printing are among the hottest items selling at antique dealers now. And while your mother or grandmother may have paid a few bob for them in the Fifties, they are now selling for thousands. Kitsch rules. Royal Winton, described by […]
WEDNESDAY, 11.30AM: PRESIDENT Nelson Mandela has been warned by a traditional healer that his ancestors may be upset after he was attacked by a swarm of bees at his ancestral home in Qunu, Transkei, on Saturday. According to presidential aide Parks Mankahlana, Mandela was stepping out of a bath at his Qunu residence when a […]