"I came here in search of a job. Everyone says that life in South Africa is good. It used to be good in Zimbabwe, but that’s all gone now." — A Zimbabwean farm worker Clever Tarindwa told the <i>Zimbabwe Independent</i>, after being caught trying to cross the border into South Africa. See what Zimbabwe’s press has to say.
<img src="http://www.mg.co.za/ContentImages/199502/Zim_icon.GIF" align=left>"It was 4am on Tuesday and opposition candidate Iain Kay was driving to his hometown near Harare. Two rallies had been planned. But by the time the sun had set, the police had detained more than two hundred people and Kay had returned to the interrogation centre where he had been tortured last year. The MDC still faces violence and intimidation, but, for now at least, it refuses to stay silent.
<img src="http://www.mg.co.za/ContentImages/199502/Zim_icon.GIF" align=left>"The only decent meal I have is when I get back home after work, but often we sleep on empty stomachs when our groceries run out. But I am not alone in my suffering, not that it is any consolation. Many of my friends and relatives living here in Glen View have carbon copy lives." In the run up to Zimbabwe’s elections little attention is paid to ordinary people. Amson Hwandih shares his story.
Descending into the underground shopping mall known as the Galleria in Rosebank, one leaves one of Johannesburg’s more opulent shopping areas for blank windows and papered-over shop fronts. What keeps a shop going for over a century, when all around, others are closing? Passion, says a small Johannesburg retailer, and specialisation.
Robert Turrell’s <i>White Mercy</i> is the first book-length history of capital punishment in South Africa. In this edited excerpt, he looks at a murder case made use of by Alan Paton.
Interesting categories for the 2005 Samas, to be held on Saturday April 16, include Best Rap Album, with Mr Selwyn’s <i>Formula</i> threatening to take the award from Skwatta Kamp, Zulu Mobb, Zubz and Baphixile. Brian Paseka Letlhabane reports.
While a wave of optimism has been surging throuhg the local film industry, hot on the heels of <i>Yesterday</i> and <i>U-Carmen eKhayelitsha</i>, the strong rand has tripped up SA’s one-stop-shop filmmaking strategy, writes Kenneth Kaplan.
"I recorded the album in Xhosa, not to show off the fact that I could, I did it for me to feel complete," says celebrated singer Simphiwe Dana. Along with Cesaria Evora, she chooses to sing in her home language — and is being acknowledged for it, writes Nadia Neophytou.
While maintaining its recipe of blending top-flight international acts with local living legends and emerging artists, the Cape Town International Jazz Festival has a new identity, but celebrates old sounds, writes Julian Jonker.
Luli Callinicos’s biography on Oliver Tambo fills a much-needed void in the examinations of the lives of South Africa’s struggle icons.
Anthony Egan reviews <i>Oliver Tambo: Beyond the Engeli Mountains</i>.