OWN CORRESPONDENT and REUTERS, Johannesburg | Friday THE South African Diamond Board said its dispute with De Beers, which had delayed two of the firm’s export consignments, centred on how to price diamond exports from the country. In a bid to solve this ongoing saga, the ministry of minerals and energy said it would fast-track […]

AFRICAN EYE NEWS SERVICE, Mbabane | Friday DISGRUNTLED subjects in eastern Swaziland are boycotting this weekend’s Umhlanga Reed Dance, an annual pageant at which the king picks a new bride, in protest against a chieftaincy row that may see them being evicted from their ancestral land. Residents of Macetjeni, near the Mozambican border, resolved during […]

JASPREET KINDRA, Johannesburg | Friday LIBERIA’S ambassador to South Africa this week conceded that the arrest of the four journalists in Monrovia on charges of spying was the latest in the series of blows to the country’s credibility. Ambassador Llewellyn Witherspoon said the arrests “did not help the country’s image”. The four journalists, including South […]

recognise it Nawaal Deane Ecstasy: “E”, or the “love drug”, costs between R50 and R80, depending on the dealer. A person on E will display affectionate behaviour, wanting to massage (non-sexually), hug or touch anyone for hours. To spot a person on E, look for someone with dilated pupils and a tense jaw, someone who […]

Jaspreet Kindra and Glenda Daniels Politics within the tripartite African National Congress-led alliance entered a particularly contradictory phase this week when branches of the union movement effectively threatened to withdraw their support from the ruling party in the run-up to the local government elections. Two major unions, which are affiliates of the alliance partner the […]

Fiona Macleod Insurance tycoon and sometimes funder of the African National Congress leadership Douw Steyn is spending millions of rands on putting down roots in a private game reserve in the Northern Province. Steyn, founder of Auto & General Insurance, was friendly with the ruling party’s top leaders in the early 1990s before he moved […]

Julie Burchill Body Language Until very recently, no matter how liberal he was, a man could argue himself blue in the face that he was in favour of all possible equalities between men and women, and then at the last moment slip the stiletto between the ribs: “Ah, but nature, you see – nature’s different. […]

South African Music Week: A CDreview special African Jazz Pioneers: Afrika Vukani (Gallo) The Pioneers haul out their old-style South African jazz stuff one more time, but it really is all wearing a bit thin now. Leader Ntemi Piliso, probably the last remaining member of the original Pioneers, groans his way through a song or […]

Martin Kettle For nearly a century, human visitors to the North Pole have found a frozen, featureless scene covered in thick ice. Until now. Earlier this month, a group of international scientists aboard a Russian ice-breaker arrived at the pole to find not ice but a stretch of open water at least 1km wide, with […]

blind Anthea Jeffery Crossfire To most South Africans, the word “racism” probably has its conventional meaning – connoting intentionally disparate treatment founded on race. Given our apartheid history, it refers to laws that deprive black people of the vote, or bar them from owning land, or exclude them from “white” schools and hospitals. It also […]