Richard Bowker SLAVE TRADES AND AN ARTIST’S NOTEBOOK by Ari Sitas (Deep South) Ari Sitas’s new book, Slave Trades and An Artist’s Notebook, 190 pages long, .consists of just two poems – those of the title. Though geographically specific – the action of each poem takes in a ravaged and destabilised Ethiopia – the historical […]
In his exhibition with his partner Claire de Jong, Wayne Barker endeavours to be both sacrificial offering and high priest at the altar of truth Alex Sudheim Several years ago, on a cold winter’s night in downtown Johannesburg, I spent a few nervous hours with the vanguard of the South African avant-garde at a place […]
Britain has called for a ban on sales of diamonds from Sierra Leone that, as in Angola, have fuelled the country’s civil war Ewen MacAskill in Antwerp and David Pallister In a small room above the Diamond Bourse in Antwerp, a dealer expressed regret over the mutilations and deaths in the African civil wars in […]
David Beresford ANOTHER COUNTRY In a country like South Africa where there seems at times to be an unhealthy subscription to fundamentalist belief it comes as something of a relief to hear laughter directed at Hansie Cronje for his evocation of Satan as the real culprit in the match-fixing scandal. At the same time one […]
The Springboks ease into the 2000 rugby season with a Test against Canada and some not-so-new faces in the team Andy Capostagno If we are to believe the coaching staff the Springboks intend to run the Maple Leaf ragged in the opening international of the season at the newly named Waverley Park in East London […]
The government’s attempts to airbrush President Thabo Mbeki’s recent blunders in HIV/Aids policy leave a nasty stain on the political and social canvas. The fact that the president flirted with, or even bought into, the dissident position on HIV/Aids, is his business and his business alone. The fact that he left the marks of his […]
Bryan Rostron recounts a close encounter with the pole-sliding publisher of Valley of the Dolls ‘South Africa – whaddya think when ya think, South Africa?” mused the exquisitely tailored New York publisher who had summoned me to his plush Manhattan office. “You think hot, right?” Suddenly he was struck by a bolt of literary inspiration. […]
Is teen pin-up Anna Kournikova bad for women’s tennis? Jon Henderson looks at the triumph of style over substance When word reached the photographers in the Wimbledon press restaurant that Billie Jean King’s opponent was in trouble on an outside court, they barely looked up from their games of cards. After all the year was […]
divisions’ Jubie Matlou and Sechaba ka Nkosi The long-awaited probe into the restructuring of the SABC has raised the possibility of privatising the corporation’s news divisions. The report by consultants Gemini, which was presented to the SABC board this week, recommends that an “ideal SABC news service would fully exploit business opportunities (that is, privatisation)”. […]
Barry Streek The government is spending R68-million a year fighting malaria and South Africa lost an estimated R19,4-million in productivity in 1998 and 1999 because of the disease, according to Minister of Health Mantho Tshabalala-Msimang. She told Parliament 26 445 cases of malaria were reported in 1998, 51 535 in 1999 and 24 047 up […]