Pass through the towering golden gates and you come to the reception area, where hidden guards eyeball visitors through tinted, bulletproof glass. Then come the glistening marble floors and voluptuous balconies, the 25m heated indoor pool and the gigantic underground car park, filled with dozens of top of the range cars (the majority bulletproof).
Given that my friends either call themselves feminists or are, at the very least, intelligent and independent, I have been surprised, as I have reached my late twenties, by how many have turned out to be desperate to get married. A few years ago they were raging over the pay gap and the glass ceiling — but recently their concerns have changed.
A friend visiting from Sierra Leone once nodded in agreement with a Nigerian colleague’s comment: ”The great thing about South Africa is that you really value your languages.” She had asked me what language Generations or Isidingo characters were speaking to each other, finding it remarkable that national television used more than one language in this way, writes Pumla Dineo Gqola.
In one episode of that brilliant television drama set in the White House, West Wing, two of the incumbent president’s aides are discussing who to endorse as his replacement. ”What happened to the days when a few crusty old men sat in a smoke-filled room and chose the candidate over cigars and port? They didn’t choose so badly. They chose men like Roosevelt and Truman,” one of them says.
Let us as Africans imagine a world that exists without corruption. As Ben Okri has said, ”The worst realities of our age are manufactured realities. It is therefore our task, as creative participants in the universe, to redream our world. The fact of possessing imagination means that everything can be redreamed.”
A first reading of the "China" column by John Matshikiza ("Hoe’s my China nou?", January 19) was offensive, but we didn’t want to overreact — perhaps he was being facetious. But after reading his second "China" piece ("Sleaze: strictly for ‘Chinese’", February 23) we are convinced of his anti-Chinese stance, write Yoon Jung Park and Tu Huynh.
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Although South Africa have threatened in each of their four Cricket World Cups, recent form suggests they could finally break a run of wretched luck and ham-fistedness to triumph in the West Indies. But the top-ranked team first have to beat world champions Australia in Basseterre, St Kitts, on March 24.
Chelsea stormed back from two goals down to snatch a 3-3 draw against Tottenham Hotspur in an electrifying FA Cup quarterfinal at Stamford Bridge on Sunday. Goals from Dimitar Berbatov and Hossam Ghaly and an own goal by Michael Essien gave Tottenham a 3-1 half-time lead as they looked set to end a 17-year wait for a win at Stamford Bridge.
Trustees of Brett Kebble’s estate have issued notices of demand to the African National Congress (ANC) to repay millions it had received from the slain mining magnate, the Sunday Times reported. The notices demanded the return of ”R24-million in stolen money paid to the ANC and leading members from Kebble’s personal account between 2002 and 2005”.
Zimbabwe riot police arrested the country’s top opposition leader on Sunday as they suppressed a planned prayer rally in a crackdown on protests against President Robert Mugabe. Witnesses said heavily armed police fought skirmishes with rock-throwing opposition supporters in the Harare township of Highfield.