Marion Edmunds One of the world’s most respected human rights watchdogs has accused the South African government of committing serious human rights abuses against illegal immigrants, in a damning report that draws parallels with the apartheid regime’s treatment of blac ks. The Human Rights Watch report is the first significant attack from an international agency […]
David Beresford: Tribute to Basil Coetzee It’s hard to say a last goodbye to a musician; harder still when his gaunt face is in a coffin on a linoleum floor, his tenor saxophone – its silver patina worn through by his once-busy fingers – resolutely silent in its place of honour up on the stage. […]
Mungo Soggot The offshore branch of embattled mining company Amalia is still enthusiastically punting the company’s London listing, trumpeting its exclusive deal to exploit Liberia’s mineral wealth – despite the fact Liberia has threatened to kill the deal. “It’s a $750-million deal – their main asset. It’s theirs unless there is a coup. Nobody can […]
Ann Eveleth Government lawyers this week secured their first victory in a series of legal battles over the fate of three allies of the late Zairean dictator Mobutu Sese Seko. Johannesburg High Court Judge Meyer Joffe on Tuesday rejected a bid by Mobutu’s former national police commander, General Kpama Baramoto, defence minister Mudima Mavua and […]
When the Minister of Minerals and Energy, Penuell Maduna, requested my resignation on March 10, it came as quite a surprise. The unceremonious manner in which my employment was terminated – “submit to me by fax your resignation with immediate effect and vacate the office you were occupying hitherto forthwith” – and the accusations levelled […]
Wally Mbhele The arrest of Robert McBride on charges of gun-running in Mozambique seems to have been a well-co-ordinated police trap, planned with the man he was captured with, Vusi Mbatha, Mozambican gun-runner Alex Mamba, and the South African security forces. There is concern that old-guard elements of the South African military and police assisted […]
Lizeka Mda: CITY LIMITS Zoo Lake is 90 years old this year. Over time people have forgotten that the name of the park is Hermann Eckstein. Such is the city’s attachment to the murky water in the sunken lake. As a park it is not even up to scratch. If ever there was some deliberate […]
Shopping mall development in the townships is about to undergo a revival – thanks to Richard Maponya, reports Charlene Smith Shopping mall developments have, in the past, failed in townships because they were targeted at a race group rather than people, says township retail guru Richard Maponya. That is set to change, he believes. In […]
FRIDAY, 3.00PM: AN unbeaten 81 by Shaun Pollock, and poor slip catching by Roshan Mahanama, paved the way for South Africa to post a good first-innings total of 418 on the second day of the first Test against Sri Lanka at Newlands on Friday. Dropped by Mahanama when he had 25, Shaun Pollock lived on […]
Shaun de Waal If the English shortlist of this year’s M-Net Book Prize (announced this week in Cape Town) is anything to go by, South African novelists are still dealing with this country’s history, its national narrative, whether recent or more distant. Ken Barris’s novel The Jailer’s Book portrays an apartheid-era South Africa through the […]