Speaking at Wits university at the weekend, Kenyan writer Ngugi wa Thiong’o examined the role of intellectuals and European languages in African development AN intellectual is a worker in ideas, with words as the primary means of production. Ideas are constructed in specific languages, and if we believe that ideas are important in development, in […]

Deciding on a Gauteng premier is likely to be a nerve-racking process, writes Wally Mbhele TWO candidates are tied in a neck-and-neck challenge for the premiership of Gauteng – and the final outcome is expected this weekend at a meeting of the leaders of the province’s African National Congress and its alliance partners. Arriving at […]

Petra Coveney in London MARC is 18. He took his first Ecstasy tablet at a nightclub in Liverpool. A friend introduced him to the drug, a blue “speckled dove”. It made him feel elated, surrounded by his mates who were all on it, as though cocooned in a cloud of friendship. Three days later Marc […]

In investigating the press, the truth commission must discover who collaborated with the Nationalist government – and who did not, argues Ken Owen A GOOD place for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to begin its quest for the truth about the media under apartheid, if I may venture a suggestion, is a small matter concerning […]

FILM OF THE WEEK : Johnathan Romney IN the great debate about cultural dumbing- down, cartoon cretins Beavis and Butt-head are often singled out as Anti-Christs, emblems of all that’s most debased in contemporary pop culture. But at the press preview of their debut movie, the cinema was crammed with more highbrow cultural journalists and […]

It doesn’t take a scientist to see the All Blacks have a winning formula, from administrators to players. Pity the South Africans can’t copy it RUGBY:Steve Morris THE past few weeks have not been a hugely successful period for South African rugby, either from the playing perspective or viewing the storms of discontent sweeping through […]

close Gustav Thiel GROOTE SCHUUR Hospital’s famed heart transplant unit could close down within months if government and private funding continue to dry up. Its existence is endangered because the cardio-thoracic unit, of which it forms a part, is under the financial whip. The government is concentrating on primary health care, and discussions about wider […]

THESE considerately crafted little numbers come from Waldeck Studios – a 3-D design company founded by artist Ian Waldeck. The company designs and crafts anything from sculptural objects to architectural components, to the odd pair of handcuffs. These particular toys were commissioned, says Waldeck, by a friend in engineering, who asked him to assemble something […]

FRIDAY, 10.50AM: The four rebel rugby unions who opposed the new Super-12 system accepted it on Thursday, ending the crisis in the competition. SA Rugby Football Union president Louis Luyt met the four unions’ presidents — Keith Parkinson of Natal, Harold Verster of Free State, Hentie Serfontein of Northern Transvaal and Ronnie Masson of Western […]

JEFF BENZIEN’s torture of former Umkhonto weSizwe guerrilla Peter Jacobs was, he said, “robust and very long”. “The normal interview with you carried on for quite a while … It was obvious you were playing for time. It was then that I resorted to using the wet bag on you,” Benzien told his amnesty hearing. […]