Adam Mars-Jones THE HUMAN STAIN by Philip Roth (Jonathan Cape) Indian summers don’t come much more blazing than the surge in Philip Roth’s literary production that stretches from Sabbath’s Theater in 1995 at least as far as the last pages of this new novel. Yet while the intensity of this run of four books has […]

Cameron Duodu Letter from the North Chuba Okadigbo, who has just been impeached as president of the Nigerian Senate, has an impish sense of mischief. Once, when the late Nnamdi Azikiwe, first president of Nigeria, complained that an election had been rigged by the party to which Okadibgo then belonged, the National Party of Nigeria […]

Station commissioner of Umbilo police station, Ian McCall, has targeted Dalton hostel as a major source of crime in the city Paul Kirk The rats scampered away with a pride of feral cats in hot pursuit as the police stormed the municipal beer hall. Adjacent to Durban’s notorious Dalton hostel, parts of the hall have […]

Thuli Nhlapo Taiwan Buddhist Compassion Relief, a charity organisation, has come to the rescue of scores of Alexandra residents who have been homeless since the February floods while the government dallies over how to spend R557- million set aside for flood relief. The flood victims have been living in squalid conditions in a transit camp, […]

THE Truth and Reconciliation Commission on Friday announced the death of the chair of the amnesty committee, Judge Hassen Mall. According to the TRC, he passed away in hospital in Durban after a short illness. Judge Mall leaves his wife Sylvia, son Envor and daughters Marciana and Shireen. 17

Howard Barrell over a barrel I have spent several days this week trying to understand the basis on which Thabo Mbeki says Tony Leon is a racist. I have read, reread and read again the speech in which Mbeki did so – the second Oliver Tambo Lecture, delivered in Johannesburg last Friday. I have enlisted […]

Evidence wa ka Ngobeni The National Coalition for Gay and Lesbian Equality has called for a commission of inquiry to probe allegations of illegal sex- change operations, medical torture and chemical castration performed by the South African Defence Force (SADF) on gay men and lesbians before 1994. The coalition, whose call for an inquiry is […]

Paul Kirk A Gauteng attorney has mysteriously vanished with tens of millions of rands he was supposedly helping to spirit out of the country. Johannesburg-based attorney Spyrodon Akritides is being investigated by police and the South African Reserve Bank on suspicion of having illegally ferreted up to R300-million out of the country, using fraudulent documentation. […]

Barry Streek Minister of Agriculture and Land Affairs Thoko Didiza wants provincial land MECs to consider taking advice from the Zimbabwean government on farming policy. Didiza convened a workshop of provincial MECs this week to discuss an offer of support from her Zimbabwean counterpart to help South Africans understand what is involved in helping to […]

Khadija Magardie The South African Law Commission has proposed a radi-cal shake-up of customary laws of inheritance to bring them in line with the Bill of Rights. The Draft Bill for the Amendment of the Customary Law of Succession proposes that women, under-age heirs and illegitimate children be allowed to inherit from a relative who […]