Mungo Soggot Police have raided Cape empowerment group Brimstone’s pharmaceutical arm for the second time this year, seizing a batch of stolen antibiotics. The swoop on Monday follows a high profile raid on the company in May, in which the narcotics squad confiscated stolen painkillers as well as assorted drugs allegedly destined for the state […]
CD of the week Neil Spencer Mindless pop exhilaration doesn’t come fresher than Hey Boy Hey Girl, the current hit from Eng Lit students turned dance bermeisters, Tom Rowlands and Ed Simons – better known as the Chemical Brothers. A slamming, joyful chunk of techno, it’s already a defining part of the soundtrack to the […]
Kasia Boddy THE ANGLE OF INCIDENCE by Alex Benzie (Viking) Alex Benzie’s novel begins with a Freudian primal scene. Five-year-old Cameron stumbles upon his parents in the act of generation. Rather than sending her son away, his mother, Catherine, insists that he watch. She wants him to understand that it is not an act of […]
Yemi Toure Just when you thought it was safe to go into the jungles of Hollywood, along come the folks at Disney, swinging from the rafters with their film Tarzan. Disney’s official website describes how the studio came up with the image, the “look,” of the 1999 Tarzan. The studio wanted the character to be […]
David Gough Ten years after the outbreak of civil war in Somalia, there is growing optimism in the capital, Mogadishu, that Islamic groups, in partnership with the business community, are on the verge of restoring a semblance of order to the city. In the past month Islamic militias operating under the auspices of self-appointed Islamic […]
A few weeks ago I attended a workshop by the law commission on its draft Administrative Justice Bill. The combination of the Open Democracy Act and this Bill will be crucial legislative instruments in ensuring open, honest democracy. In the words of the Mpumalanga political lexicon, these laws will make it hard for government to […]
In the mystically charged Grahamstown, more drama is taking place in the streets than on the stages and in the theatres, writes John Matshikiza `I wish people would stop talking about white and black,” National Arts Festival director Lynette Marais is quoted as saying in last week’s Sunday Times, “and just talk about a South […]
Fiona Macleod Riccardo Ghiazza, the man at the centre of the Tuli elephant furore, is being investigated by police in connection with a huge illegal animal-smuggling network. The endangered species protection unit (ESPU), a branch of the police service, is scrutinising Ghiazza’s alleged links with some of the kingpins of Southern Africa’s illegal wildlife trade. […]
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 […]