With chaos and conflict spreading, Zaire, the UN and Western nations are seeing the consequences of their callous neglect, reports Chris McGreal THEODENNE KALENDA waited uncertainly one side of an invisible line that marks the border between Zaire and Rwanda, halfway across a bridge over the Ruzizi river. His neighbours watched from the hillside behind […]

CAROLINE SULLIVAN thought live hip-hop was boring – until she saw the Fugees play in London HOW big is “big”? In the Fugees’s case, big enough that Sony had to stop making their number-one single, Killing Me Softly, because it wouldn’t get out of the charts over the summer to make way for the next […]

They came as robbers to a house in Lenasia but they left as murderers of a young boy. Angella Johnson reports on the killing that shocked a community HE was only five years old. A boy delighted with himself after finding his lost piggy bank. But when Yaaseen Ebrahim rushed out of his room rattling […]

The truth commission’s Alex Boraine said the confessions would start. Last week, the perpetrators began to tell their stories. In the latest in our guest writer series, poet Antjie Krog listens to the different voices FOR six months the Truth Commission has listened to the voices of victims. The first narrative, focused and clear, cut […]

Not Quite Friday Night is back on our TV screens with a change of name.ANDREW WORSDALE talks to the director ON entering the room I notice an ashtray crammed with stompies and half-sucked cough sweets; a soundtrack features some eccentric interviewee and I catch the end of a sentence, ” … the heat then starts […]

Despite the loss of many familiar faces in the labour movement, unions deny a lack of leadership, write Jacquie Golding-Duffy and Anthony Kunda THE exodus in 1994 of many experienced unionists into the government and business dealt the labour movement a massive blow. When the likes of Jay Naidoo, Alec Erwin and Cyril Ramaphosa left, […]

At last, Cathy O’Dowd’s incredible story of the troubled expedition to Mount Everest, as told to David Beresford I USED to hate physical activities: school sports, organised games, teams, winning and losing and competition. But I love climbing. It is personal. The challenge is what you make of it. The complete physical and mental commitment […]

The parastatal and its main union have clashed over rights to a major stake in Johnnic, write Andy Duffy and Max Gebhardt TRANSNET’S pension fund has emerged as a major player in the Johnnic empowerment deal, fighting with the South African Railway and Harbour Workers’ Union (Sarhwu) for control over a large stake in the […]

THERE is Hebron, and there is beyond Hebron. At the moment the Israeli-Palestinian talks are bogged down on the first item dividing them, let alone the other issues still ahead. Israel claims that it is not seeking to alter the agreement already reached (but not implemented) on withdrawal from the last of the seven West […]

Mungo Soggot THE shortcomings of state-sponsored accident insurance were highlighted this week in a case in which a paraplegic told a tragic tale of her struggle against avaricious relatives while her lawyer slammed the state’s controversial pay-out practices. Judge Neil MacArthur implored Renia Motloung, 30, who was turned into a paraplegic in a collision in […]