Gaye Davis A HIGH-POWERED group of African intellectuals, professionals, trade unionists and corporate high-fliers are spearheading a bid to pull the Pan Africanist Congress back from the brink and provide South Africa with a left-of-centre party promoting Africanist ideals. Known as the Concerned Africanists, the group spearheaded the notion of a historic national convention of […]

CINEMA: Shaun de Waal THE Cuban film Fresa y Chocolate (Strawberry and Chocolate), directed by Tomas Gutierrez Alea and Juan Carlos Tabio, sheds a unique light on the world’s longest-running experiment in socialism. Based on Senel Paz’s novella The Wolf, the Woods and the New Man, it tells the story of the relationship of a […]

Phillip van Niekerk in Monrovia AGAINST the insistent rattle of gunfire, people sheltering in Monrovia’s diplomatic enclave of Mamba Point speak of something as threatening as the war: hunger. Once United States helicopters airlift Westerners and diplomats, those left behind in the Liberian capital will have to forage for something to eat in a city […]

Hezekiel Sepeng hasn’t broken the South African record yet, but he’s running into form at the right time ATHLETICS: Julian Drew EVER since Hezekiel Sepeng burst onto the scene as a fresh faced junior in 1993 to inject some much needed life into a stagnant local 800m scene the pressure has been on him to […]

Desmond Tutu, chairman of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, in The Mark Gevisser Profile WONDERFUL! Wonderful! Wonderful! Ever since I spent time with Desmond Tutu a few weeks ago, I have caught myself, repeatedly, doing The Arch whenever something has pleased me. Head thrown back, arms extended upwards in an angelic “V”, spasms of praise […]

Rehana Rossouw ONE of Cape Town’s most notorious gang leaders, Rashied Staggie, was caught red- handed breaking into a Woodstock home last year. Last week, he walked free out of court after the charges against him were dropped. The police investigating officer could not produce the three witnesses lined up to give evidence against Staggie, […]

Ann Eveleth ANC MP Billy Nair is the next witness to take the stand in the trial of General Magnus Malan and his 19 co-accused which gets going again in the Durban Supreme Court on Monday. Nair — an ANC and South African Communist Party stalwart — was one of four targets allegedly chosen by […]

HAZEL FRIEDMAN attends three remarkable plays in which juvenile offenders express themselves with the aid of Puppets in Prison SEAN MCKINLEY admits to being proud of nothing in his young life. Except his digestive system. “Shit man, I’m good at swallowing anything — cell-phones, watches … you name it, I chow it.” From a distance, […]

The social costs involved in losing skilled immigrants has led to complaints about the ineptitude of home Affairs officials, reports Marion Edmunds Department of trade and industry officials revealed this week they had to intervene to ensure skilled foreigners are not prevented access to the South African job market by inept members of the Department […]

Nelson Mandela asked Washington for help in rescuing South African journalist Phillip van Niekerk from Liberia after he was trapped in the fighting this week. When the guns began firing in down-town Monrovia, Van Niekerk, the Southern African correspondent for the M&G’s sister newspaper The Observer, was the only foreign newsman left in Liberia. South […]