Of the half-a-million `convicts’ shipped to Siberia to fuel the engines of the Stalinist regime, only a few survived. Eventually, they were given their freedom, and a paper to say they had not committed any crime. Yet 50 years on, many are still living in their icy prison. James Meek reports On a winter’s day […]

Review of the week Struan Douglas When Nelson Mandela opened the National Arts Festival’s anniversary celebrations with his compassionate shuffle on June 29, African jazz started going mad all over town. Ebbing, flowing, dipping, peaking, threatening boredom, crying unprogressive yet ensuring its longevity. We’ve had the retrospective perennials. July 1 was devoted to old timers […]

Aaron Nicodemus Aids and KwaZulu-Natal hotels apparently don’t mix very well. Last week, participants in a workshop on Aids were nearly evicted from the Hluhluwe Zulu Nyala Protea Hotel in the north-east of the province when it was revealed that some were HIV-positive. According to Aids activist Oziel Mdletshe, who attended the workshop, the hotel […]

Alex Dodd Halfway up the main staircase of the Albany Museum, stuck to a bright red wall are the following words: “The universe is not to be narrowed down to the limits of the understanding which has been man’s practice up to now, but the understanding must be stretched and enlarged to take in the […]

Loose cannon Robert Kirby Yet again poor Mr Thabo Mbeki has been sorely misconstrued. On this latest occasion it was his pugnacious refusal to free Mpumalanga of its Premier, Mr Ndaweni “Lies-Are-Cool” Mahlangu, which got everyone up in arms. Mr Mbeki said that he would not be prepared to “worsen things in Mpumalanga” by firing […]

name, let’s call it “Madiba” and be done. – Will Bernard, Westdene I refer to the report regarding the proposed renaming of Pretoria to Mandela City, to be spearheaded by the New Nationalist Party, according to their representative, one Max van der Walt. A few years ago, the Nationalist Party turned their backs on Dr […]

Tangeni Amupadhi IN CONFLICT by Anthony Feinstein (David Philip) In Conflict is one man’s account of how he compromised his own beliefs to fight in defence of apartheid. Anthony Feinstein put off national service in the then South African Defence Force (SADF) by going straight from school to university, where he became increasingly convinced that […]

Heather Hogan Potchefstroom police have launched an intensive search for missing Witrand hospital patient John Walgenbach. This is the 10th time Walgenbach has escaped from the dismal institution. Walgenbach (43) – who has the mental capacity of a five-year-old – escaped from Witrand on Friday, June 18. Many other patients walk out of the institution […]

Shaun de Waal Art movie of the week South African writer Damon Galgut’s novel, on which Belgian director Marion Hnsel’s film The Quarry is based, is a spare, hauntingly oblique work. The main character is known simply as ”the man”: as the film begins, he is on the run, but why, and from what, we […]