Despite pollution and criticism of its human rights record, Beijing looks set to host the 2008 Olympics Steven Mufson Measured against Toronto, Paris and Osaka the other finalists bidding to host the 2008 Olympic Games Beijing leaves some things to be desired. Like clean air. In the mid-1990s the World Bank declared the Chinese capital […]
Barry Streek Minister of Social Development Zola Skweyiya has ordered an immediate inquiry into the delay earlier this week in the payment of about 400 000 of the more than 3,5-million social grants. People receiving grants should have received a minimum 5,6% increase at the beginning of the month, but instead had to wait because […]
LETTERS TO THE BEST MAN To Tony Leon from Craig Tanner I am a close confidant of Dr Essop Pahad, our leader’s Best Man. We are working together to ensure that our leader serves as president for his lifetime. My purpose in writing to you is twofold. I need to express appreciation of your role […]
Last weekend more than 300 young people from rural Zululand travelled to a youth festival. Niki Moore was there The taxis and vans that rolled up at the James Nxumalo Agricultural College just south of Ulundi last Friday afternoon were riding low on their axles: not only from the numbers of eager young people inside, […]
Shortlisted for this year’s Sanlam Literary Award, Sheila Roberts’s new novel, Purple Yams, is just out from Penguin. Stephen Gray interviewed her on her recent return to Johannesburg Since 1975 when she made her debut with the prize-winning collection, Outside Life’s Feast, Sheila Roberts has sustained an impressive career in publishing. Two later collections have […]
Crossfire Sipho Pityana Sipho Seepe’s polemic against the Millennium Africa Renewal Programme (MAP) and Greg Mills’s article in your newspaper last week hopefully mark the onset of an interesting debate. I take issue, however, with both of them. MAP is an important, timely initiative by African leaders to lift the continent from poverty and conflict […]
Its long-time sponsor might be gone, but the Durban July shows no signs of running out of puff Whipping Boy Some things change and some stay the same. Chrissie Hynde could have been singing about the first Saturday in July, when tradition demands that all eyes turn to Greyville racecourse for South Africa’s most glamorous […]
The lawyer who defrauded accident victims has a huge foreign share portfolio Marianne Merten Hoosain Mohamed the Cape Town attorney struck off the roll for pocketing millions of rands from poor accident victims has admitted to net assets of almost R3-million and an overseas share portfolio of ”a million or two rand”. He was arrested […]
We are normally on our knees when we are most vulnerable: we crawl before we learn to walk and we are on our knees when we pray. But Kobus Swart (33), a lawyer from Benoni, will be crawling in an attempt to break the Guinness Book of Records entry left in 1992 by two Australians, […]
Barry Streek The Democratic Alliance’s suspension of its one of its MPs, Richard Pillay, a former member of the African National Congress, is likely to end his parliamentary career. Pillay, who faces a disciplinary committee hearing that will decide his political future, has rejected an ”offer” by the DA to resign his seat in Parliament. […]