It is known as the rebel city, wants independence from the rest of Ireland, and nurtures a nagging underdog complex. Now Cork, Ireland’s second city, will make history next year as the smallest place to be European capital of culture — on the smallest budget.
Dawn seeps through the bleached curtain and Thembeni Ndlovu rouses the five children beside her. Yawning and stretching they shuffle into the sun while Thembeni fills a plastic bowl for bathing, sweeps the yard and scours bare cupboards for breakfast. Their clothes ragged, their feet bare, their bellies empty, the Ndlovu children are orphans.
Deep divisions between judges at the Cape High Court have been exposed since Judge President John Hlophe angrily criticised his colleagues on the Bench for resisting transformation, and the apparent involvement of Deputy Judge President Jeanette Traverso in the affair now raises questions about the progress of the case that sparked the row.
Andrew Meintjes died on October 5 at the age of 50 — murdered during an armed robbery at his Braamfontein, Johannesburg, studio. Meintjes was an inventor, photographer, artist and printing legend. He was a photographer’s best friend and famous among us — a Photoshop jockey who could whip any badly exposed negative into shape. Pushing the limits, he dragged out the shadow detail and found the highlights.
There is Heinz Field, home of the Steelers football team, the Heinz chapel, with its 23 stained glass windows, the Heinz hall for music lovers, the Heinz Gallery for visual art, and coming soon, in a converted red-brick factory, the Heinz riverside luxury flats.
Schabir Shaik will tell the Durban High Court next week that there was nothing improper in his relationship with Deputy President Jacob Zuma, but that they were bound together by deeply personal ties of family and political struggle. Central to the fraud and corruption charges Shaik faces is the allegation that he had a corrupt relationship with Zuma, who facilitated contracts for Shaik’s company in return for bribes. Both Zuma and Shaik have disputed this.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?cg=Insight-National&ao=123337">Politics of patronage</a>
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?cg=Insight-National&ao=123340">Zuma’s popularity undented</a>
British Prime Minister Tony Blair on Thursday proposed a 15 000-strong European Union battle force, including British troops, dedicated to intervening in African conflicts and deployable within 10 days of a political instruction. He said the force should be ready next year.
The surge of violence in the Middle East spilled across Israel’s southern border into Egypt on Thursday night as more than 30 holidaymakers were killed and scores more injured in a devastating series of apparently coordinated car bomb attacks in Red Sea resorts.
Israeli tourists rush back home
They call me Liewe Heksie, but Lavinia is my name. I’m the cleverest witch that I know, and I’ve even been to the moon. That’s how I used to say hello to the children. It used to rhyme, too, when the nice uncles at the SAUK let me do my show in Afrikaans. That’s all gone now. I’m not complaining, though, you understand: my new place is small and the roof leaks, but I have my health.
When Portuguese sailors first rounded the Cape in 1488 they called it Cabo Tormentosa for the storms that buffeted their medieval vessels. Now the trials and tribulations of those early mariners — people who could in fact be called the first new South Africans — are providing a major drawcard for modern-day adventurers on the Wild Coast.