Krisjan Lemmer Last week Die Burger ran a sanctimonious article chiding two eminent neurologists for disclosing details of former president PW Botha’s stroke in his spat with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The crime the medics commited: disclosing to the world, without asking Botha’s permission, that the old crocodile had probably become mentally unstable as […]
Holistic land management has begun to take root in South Africa, reports Belinda Anderson Every year, almost 400-million tons of precious South African topsoil are washed into dams and rivers by inefficient management techniques. It is estimated that by the year 2020 all of South Africa’s dams will be silted up. The government attributes erosion […]
Charl Blignaut: On stage in Pretoria In 1997, South Africa’s leading concert promoter Attie van Wyk announced that he and showbiz afficionado Bernard Jay would be establishing a new company, In-Concert Theatre. They would be looking to inject a dash of star quality on to the local stage by importing international stars to perform in […]
Poet, novelist and critic Lionel Abrahams is one of the most influential figures in South African literature. Mark Gevisser pays tribute to him on the occasion of his 70th birthday There is something transformative about a first encounter with Lionel Abrahams. At the outset, it is hard not to be overwhelmed by his extreme physical […]
Mercedes Sayagues It used to be that every morning when Zimbabwe’s only English-language daily, The Herald, was delivered to my home, I would read it at leisure over coffee, or take it to the office for a mid-morning perusal. A quick read was enough, since the government-owned Herald served a bland porridge of watered-down local […]
Andrew Muchineripi Soccer Another Sunday, another hot Highveld afternoon, another match in the seemingly endless Castle Premiership programme. Fixture number 270 to be precise. Mid-table Moroka Swallows versus relegation candidates African Wanderers. The setting last weekend was George Goch Stadium, a modest, homely stadium one long goal kick from the M1 highway that, like so […]
Peter Vale: A SECOND LOOK We made the military, now the military makes us: to recognise this bromide is to understand the inevitability of what historians one day will surely call Georg Meiring’s Folly. Far too quickly for democratic comfort have searching questions over the military been driven to the corners of our national life. […]
Andy Duffy The investigation into the fiery killing of Cape Flats gang leader Rashaad Staggie has exposed a deep split within the ranks of the Western Cape police. The probe has already looked at police allegations that top police intelligence operatives have collaborated with People Against Gangsterism and Drugs (Pagad) – the vigilante group responsible […]
Wally Mbhele President Nelson Mandela this week threw his weight behind the theory that Robert McBride was set up in Mozambique by security force elements keen to give credibility to the discredited “Meiring” coup report. At a briefing for opposition leaders, Mandela said he had considered the possibility that McBride’s arrest was orchestrated to bolster […]
Ten years from now, the solar system could be teeming with pint-sized space probes, each no larger than a baseball. That’s the claim of William Tang, of Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), speaking last week at the 1998 Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Aerospace Conference in Colorado. Tang works on micro-electro- mechanical systems, or […]