LIBYA on Friday condemned the militant activities of the Philippines Muslim insurgent Abu Sayyaf guerrillas — who last held South African couple Monique and Carel Strydom hostage — and said they must be “crushed.” Salem Adam, Libya’s ambassador to Manila described the Abu Sayyaf as a group of bandits and ruled out any further negotiations […]
THE original recording of “The Lion Sleeps Tonight”, composed 62 years ago by a South African who died in poverty without royalties, is to be released again to benefit his family. Versions of the song by Solomon Linda will be recorded by top South African groups Ladysmith Black Mambazo and the Elite Swingsters and released […]
Ben Summers The Internet may be the most powerful advance in technology of recent years, but the past has never been more easily revisited. Nostalgia has never been so much fun. Witness the toys of your childhood for example, such as Mr Potato Head. In production since 1952, Mr Potato Head had a resurgence of […]
A European tour led to overseas distribution and now this local band is being remixed in Prague Adam Haupt When Moodphase 5ive released their debut album, Steady On, they won Cape Town over big time. Who could forget their phenomenal performances at this year’s Up the Creek and North Sea Jazz Festival? They also toured […]
Martin Gillingham South Africa’s athletics selectors have performed a remarkable volte face and secretly invited top 400m runner Arnaud Malherbe to join the team in Edmonton. Last week’s Mail & Guardian reported that South Africa would be travelling to Canada without a specialist relay squad. The men’s 4x400m quartet is one of South Africa’s few […]
Jeremy Cronin writes (July 20) that the “key achievement” of the South African Communist Party was to rethink the communist project. The seminal work in this regard was Joe Slovo’s Has Socialism Failed? (1990) which argued as Cronin puts it that the “key weakness in the Soviet system was a tragic undermining of democracy”. Cronin […]
For these bikers, happiness is a fast bike, writes Leila Amanpour Bikers and Hell’s Angels wannabes, usually associated with white culture, were never a popular sight in Soweto. Even now, some Sowetans regard bikers as the “bad guys”, but for Soweto’s number-one biker gang, the Eagles, friendship and family are paramount to their lives. For […]
Marianne Merten The Cape High Court this week delivered one of South Africa’s first rulings on ethical and accountable conduct by state officials when it slammed as unconstitutional the actions by two state advocates in prosecuting the 1996 murder of Cape gang boss Rashaad Staggie. Cape Deputy Judge President Jeanette Traverso and Judge Dennis Davis […]
The government should consult sufficiently on the retraining of under-qualified teachers Colloquium Hlengani Siweya The Ministry of Education, and its mathematics and science advisers, must stop sidelining academics in working out how best to retrain maths and science schoolteachers. The ministry must begin engaging with academics on the simplest but most effective approaches to deal […]
Jaspreet Kindra The African National Congress national executive committee (NEC) meeting at the weekend is expected to formulate a hard-hitting stance on the United States’s threats to boycott the United Nations conference on racism to be held in Durban at the end of this month. The US has raised concerns about the inclusion of reparations […]