Suzy Bell: Durban nightlife The cool idea of a “recovery room” and cigar lounge at Bean Bag Bohemia, installation art at Crash, capuccino chairs at Jamb Lounge, breakbeat insanity at Bedlam, and the mellow mood at Dusk till Dawn constitute a fine, fat slobbery kiss for Durban’s nightlife, which has clawed its way from the […]
The political mud-slinging that erupted this week between the Democratic Party and the African National Congress over the so-called “Aids treatment” Virodene has served to obscure the real issues, and significant dangers, associated with the Virodene project. Minister of Health Nkosazana Zuma’s fierce response seems to indicate that the tenacious minister has not yet given […]
Mungo Soggot Central Energy Fund chair Don Mkhwanazi tried to crush government opposition to his appointment of Emanuel Shaw II with a string of threatening letters to the civil servant who raised the alarm. The Mail & Guardian is in possession of two letters Mkhwanazi wrote to Deputy Director General of Minerals and Energy Gordon […]
Mungo Soggot and : Andy Duffy A fraud and theft docket has been opened against the financial director of a South African mining company that sat on crucial information about its dismal performance on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange. The JSE suspended the listing of Amalia Gold on Thursday as details of the company’s woes began […]
Njongonkulu Ndungane: UBUNTU When liberation came to South Africa in 1994, people rejoiced that at last there was freedom. Indeed, in the years just prior to the 1994 elections, we saw a surfeit of freedoms of expression that we had previously only known to exist in democracies like the United States. Not all these were […]
FRIDAY, 6.00PM: SHARES on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange staged a late rally after a dull day on Friday, much to the consternation of dealers who were at a loss to explain the recovery. The all gold index slipped 2,1 points to 742,7. The industrial index rose 69,9 points to 8187,2, and the financial index, 103,3 […]
Belinda Beresford There’s something sensual about the feel of a fat wad of crisp new banknotes. The rippled paper is a small piece of attempted perfection which took a month to forge and contains dozens of security devices. All South African paper money is printed by the South African Bank Note Company (SABN), although the […]
Jack Schofield Plastic television and computer screens could be printed out by the yard using technology from Cambridge University and its development partner Seiko-Epson, a large Japanese manufacturer of computer printers. And because plastic screens can be flexible, TV sets could be hung on the wall and rolled up afterwards. The new screens are based […]
Stepping from the relentless glare of a Johannesburg summer morning into the cool darkness of the Wits Theatre is not unlike entering a secret, parallel universe. One minute you’re dodging a stream of sausage-factory suits hurtling along the pavement to work, the next you’re watching a man in a loincloth sweep his arms over a […]
Dan Glaister in London He played a priest in True Confessions and the devil in Angel Heart, but these blasphemous associations did not stop the Vatican approaching Robert de Niro to ask him to contribute to a CD recording of the poems of Pope John Paul II. But now the invitation has been withdrawn. The […]