SDIs are aimed specifically at boosting employment and black empowerment, but, asks Hein Marais, will they have the necessary finances? Right now the multi-billion rand Mozal smelter is just two holes in the ground – 3m deep, a kilometre apart, several football pitches wide – gouged out of a patch of pasture in Matola, outside […]

A lot more goes on after bedtime than we know about, writes Gill Moodie The next time you are tossing and turning in bed, it might ease the night to think of scientists at the University of the Witwatersrand who are holding vigil over electro-encephalogram (EEG) machines to try to understand that mysterious activity that […]

David Shapshak Kabuki theatre, one of Japan’s most ancient and revered art forms, comes to South Africa for the first time this weekend. Renowned Kabuki actor Satojiro Wakayagi will perform the famed kagamijishi dance (the lion of new year’s banquet) at Sandton’s Theatre on the Square on Sunday night. Kabuki is quintessentially Japanese. A highly-stylised […]

In New York you get whipped, in Thailand it’s real sex, but in Zimbabwe you just stock up on fantasies. Mercedes Sayagues meets the Warriors I don’t know what turns you on. But I know what turned on 500 Zimbabwean women last week: the muscular, sculpted bodies of six young South African hunks as they […]

A small church is reuniting the uprooted residents of Kofifi, writes Peter Makurube When former residents of Sophiatown talk about their beloved Kofifi, they overdose on nostalgia. They’ve forgotten nothing – the music, the gangsters and the community spirit. However, the story of Sophiatown would not be complete without mentioning the tiny church on Ray […]

Andrew Muchineripi : Soccer For sheer suspense, the ongoing saga over who will succeed Monsieur Philippe Troussier as coach of the national team is beginning to rival an Agatha Christie thriller. Dutchman Ruud Gullit was coming to Africa to transform Bafana Bafana into giants, only to be permanently distracted by the small matter of a […]

Chris Gordon Angola has ejected Jonas Savimbi from the peace process, with the backing of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), saying that the Unita leader has placed himself “outside the law”. Communication between the government and Unita collapsed after the armed wing of Unita again failed to meet a deadline to hand over their […]

Jerome Burne Dreams are fascinating: they are personal, intimate and totally inaccessible to anyone else. And yet they are bizarre, mysterious and seemingly nothing to do with the dreamer. We still don’t understand why we dream, but new findings, presented to the recent Conference on the Scientific Study of Consciousness at Tucson, Arizona, have been […]

Ann Eveleth Many non-governmental organisations entered NGO Week this year on the precipice of financial uncertainty, with further delays predicted in the establishment of the long- awaited National Development Agency. Parliament approved legislation last week paving the way for the agency, which will channel state and donor funds to struggling organisations, but NGO commentators said […]

Ferial Haffajee A Pretoria branch of the Democratic Party is known as the armed wing of the party – or Umkhonto weDP – because its members have so much firepower. Among the diverse membership of the Centurion branch are former generals, colonels navy officers of the old South African Defence Force and 12 members of […]