Agriculture and Land Affairs Minister Lulu Xingwana is being sued for R100 000 by the estranged wife of acting Land Bank CEO Phil Mohlahlane in a divorce suit. In papers filed this week in the Johannesburg High Court, Mohlahlane’s estranged wife, Joyce, says her husband and Xingwana have conducted an affair since 2006.
Amid the secularisation of education, there are still schools that hold on to religious practices. This is the story of one such school where faith is taking on new dimensions. Fifteen minutes before the bell goes for the start of another school day, the teachers in the staff room pray together for the children, the parents and the town’s folk.
Last week’s launch of the Diamond Trading Company Botswana represents a dramatic change in beneficiation processes that come from the global diamond trade. The 50:50 partnership between the Botswana government and De Beers will see Botswana become one of the world’s most advanced sorting and valuing operations.
President Thabo Mbeki could face more pressure over the next few months after the Mail & Guardian learned that supporters of Jacob Zuma are informally building a case against the president. The aim would be to force Mbeki to agree to a general amnesty for those with dirty hands in the arms deal or face having to explain himself in court.
The Christian Motorcycle Association (CMA) is an organisation dedicated to spreading the word of Christ through motorcycling. ”We go where no one else goes,” says Stan Wilson, president for the Pietermaritzburg CMA branch. The CMA is not a club, but a ministry.
On a drab Braamfontein street corner is a small store called Grayscale, specialising in graffiti paraphernalia and alternative streetwear. Gini Grindith, as he is known in the hip-hop community, mans the counter. A graffiti writer who has not led a religious life before, he has decided to become a Muslim.
”For the past few years I’ve been taking a break from everything generally branded ‘New Age’,” writes Nicole Johnston. ”So when the editor assigned me to have my Chinese horoscope read and visit a healer who speaks to angels, I was more than a little dubious.”
Do religion and sport mix? Some sports people evidently think so. Players who believe in God often show it openly — some saying a prayer on the field after scoring or missing a goal, others showing off T-shirts underneath their kit bearing religious messages.
A group of leading Southern Baptists has denounced the denomination’s stance on global warming as ”too timid”. Its cautious response to the environment is seen around the world as ”uncaring, reckless and ill-informed”, they say. Their statement has widened divisions about climate change within the American evangelical movement.
”My old man is a soldier of Zion. On Sundays, when he is not out trying to eke out a living, he is immersed in the Zion Christian Church (ZCC); you can spot him in the streets of Orlando East kitted to the nines in his warrior outfit.” Sello S Alcock looks at the history and dress code of the ZCC.