The Robert McBride saga has been presented as an “embarrassment” for the South African government. As time goes by it is becoming apparent that it is far more significant than that. It seems to mask a major threat to national security and McBride is seem ingly not the culprit. For those familiar with the activities […]

Emeka Nwandiko With a sharp intake of breath, followed by an oath, Aubrey flicks his left wrist and casts to the concrete floor a pair of dice. A three and four is scored, notching up his winnings to R50. He is all smiles: considering that when he began the game of ama dice he had […]

Andrew Muchineripi: Soccer His French accent was thicker than coarse-cut breakfast marmalade, but the message spelt out by new Bafana Bafana coach Philippe Troussier at his first media conference this week was crystal clear. The White Witchdoctor believed the national team had great potential and would not provide cannon fodder for Group C opponents France […]

Caroline Sullivan: CD of the week It was clear after the sexcentricity of Madonna’s last studio LPs, Erotica and Bedtime Stories, that the next would have to be markedly different – and Ray Of Light (WEA) certainly is. She’s done what superstars at a crossroads do – found religion. She’s been studying the Kabbalah and […]

Lizeka Mda: CITY LIMITS Zoo Lake is 90 years old this year. Over time people have forgotten that the name of the park is Hermann Eckstein. Such is the city’s attachment to the murky water in the sunken lake. As a park it is not even up to scratch. If ever there was some deliberate […]

Shaun de Waal If the English shortlist of this year’s M-Net Book Prize (announced this week in Cape Town) is anything to go by, South African novelists are still dealing with this country’s history, its national narrative, whether recent or more distant. Ken Barris’s novel The Jailer’s Book portrays an apartheid-era South Africa through the […]

Richard Williams: Movie of the week When Wim Wenders points to the change in the nature of violence in the mainstream cinema, he is stating the obvious. He says he made The End of Violence to get us thinking about how explicitly gruesome sights that would have been unthinkable 10 years ago appear to be […]

Marion Edmunds Former Denel chief executive Johan Alberts walked away from the arms parastatal with a whopping R18-million in pension and restraint-of-trade payments, according to a senior government source. Minister of Public Enterprises Stella Sicgau is sitting on an explosive forensic audit that exposes how Alberts and other top managers at Denel paid themselves huge […]

When the Minister of Minerals and Energy, Penuell Maduna, requested my resignation on March 10, it came as quite a surprise. The unceremonious manner in which my employment was terminated – “submit to me by fax your resignation with immediate effect and vacate the office you were occupying hitherto forthwith” – and the accusations levelled […]

Michael Nurok For top Kenyan runners the real competition is not international – it occurs at national level, where local runners are forced to compete against arguably the best distance runners in the world. A quick look at the International Amateur Athletics Federation World Cross Country Championship records shows Kenyan junior and senior men placing […]