Wally Mbhele Minister of Labour Membathisi Mdladlana failed to address the tension between the government and public sector unions over the wage negotiations deadlock when he spoke at the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) special congress on Thursday. Mdladlana’s approach was a departure from the hardline position that has been taken by a […]

Scotch Tagwireyi The University of the Witwatersrand is being taken to the Commission for Conciliation Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA) by eight former employees who claim they were unfairly dismissed last month. The dismissed workers from the catering, grounds and academic departments were accused of defrauding the university of more than R595 177. According to the […]

Howard Barrell When hundreds of thousands of civil servants join marches and work stoppages next Tuesday, the country could witness the broadest coalition of labour traditions ever to combine in an industrial dispute on South African soil. Public servants of all races, language groups and political persuasions are expected to be involved in the protests, […]

Howard Barrell Over a Barrel On my way to work each morning, I pass a set of traffic lights in an outlying Cape Town suburb at which about 50 men offer themselves, often pleading, for any kind of work at almost any rate of pay. Their daily horror, like that of the jobless across the […]

CD of the week Robin Denselow He may have been wildly unpredictable in recent years, experimenting with anything from jazz fusion to French popular song, but Salif Keita, hailed as “the golden voice of Mali”, can still sing magnificently, as experienced on his new album, Papa (Metro Blue/Blue Note). This tight, rhythmic new set, co-produced […]

Scott Bradfield EAST OF THE MOUNTAINS by David Guterson (Bloomsbury) When 73-year-old retired heart surgeon Ben Givens diagnoses a tumour in his colon, he sets off from his Seattle home intending to exhaust his body doing the things he loves – climbing, hunting birds with his dogs and recalling his recently deceased wife, Rachel. It […]

found it a little more difficult John Matshikiza tracks South African Minister of Foreign Affairs Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma’s attempts to make sense of the various factions of the Congolese rebel movement in war-ravaged Kisangani Kisangani, the Democratic Republic of Congo. Wed-nesday August 11. I have arrived from the eastern Congolese town of Goma, seat of the […]

Marianne Merten ‘If a kid is breaking [dancing] he is not breaking in,” says Emile XY? from the rap group Black Noise, who helped organise last Saturday’s Battle of the Year breakdancing competition. Emile (formerly Jansen, which he abandoned because of its slave history) has been breaking, popping and spinning since 1982. Since giving up […]

Drink Robyn Alexander The delicious irony of hearing Cape- tonians saying ”let’s go to Jo’burg” is reason enough to think this just-opened Long Street bar is the coolest place in town. Then, of course, there’s the decor: a beautiful, glittering purple sign above the red door and window frames spells out ”Jo’burg” in a curvy […]

There are several potential medal-winners in the South African team at the World Athletics Championships, but this depends on form and temperament, writes Michael Finch Such are the vagaries of athletics that South Africa’s biggest-ever team to attend a world athletics championships could either return home at the end of August with as many as […]