Lynda Gledhill At Coronation hospital in Coronationville on the West Rand, tiny infants, born premature and just days old, lie inside incubators struggling to breathe as nurses check their vital signs and mothers sit by their sides. Outside this ward, the hospital is struggling to overcome new hurdles and re-emerge as a viable, respected medical […]
Charlene Smith Minnie Mouse, Mickey Mouse, flying ducks and cheaply made chintzy porcelain with transfer printing are among the hottest items selling at antique dealers now. And while your mother or grandmother may have paid a few bob for them in the Fifties, they are now selling for thousands. Kitsch rules. Royal Winton, described by […]
WEDNESDAY, 11.30AM: PRESIDENT Nelson Mandela has been warned by a traditional healer that his ancestors may be upset after he was attacked by a swarm of bees at his ancestral home in Qunu, Transkei, on Saturday. According to presidential aide Parks Mankahlana, Mandela was stepping out of a bath at his Qunu residence when a […]
WEDNESDAY, 5.00PM: SELF-confessed Inkatha Freedom Party hit squad member Brian Gcina Mkhize has told the Truth and Reconciliation Commission that he was one of a Caprivi-trained hit squad sent to kill African National Congress leaders in Esikhawini township near Eshowe, KwaZulu-Natal in 1991. Mkhize, who is serving a 20-year sentence for two murders in 1994, […]
WEDNESDAY, 6.00PM: A DAMNING report cataloguing the Nigerian military junta’s systematic violation of basic human rights was issued by a UN special rapporteur on Wednesday. The report, the first to be devoted entirely to Nigeria, provoked an angry reaction from Nigeria’s foreign minister Tom Ikimi, who said the European Union, and Britain in particular, wants […]
WEDNESDAY, 6.00PM: THE trial of former state president PW Botha adjourned on Wednesday afternoon after calling only one witness, Truth and Reconciliation Commission executive secretary Paul van Zyl. Van Zyl said the reasons for the TRC wanting Botha to appear before it in person were that it would be able to include better evidence, get […]
TUESDAY 1.00PM: DEPUTY president Thabo Mbeki arrived in Seoul, South Korea, on Tuesday for a three-day visit intended to improve trade and political relations. Mbeki was invited to South Korea by acting prime minister Kim Jong-Pil and will be meeting President Kim Dae-Jung. ”Essentially what we want to do in South Korea is sensitise the […]
THURSDAY, 5.30PM: SOUNDING like a repentant prodigal son, President Robert Mugabe on Thursday launched Zimbabwe’s second economic reform programme, pledging never to repeat the mistakes which saw the country degenerate into economic chaos. LEWIS MACHIPISA reports that the ambitious new Zimbabwe Programme for Economic and Social Transformation envisages an annual growth of six percent over […]
MONDAY, 12.15PM: A CLOSE confidant to Hard Livings gang leader Rashied Staggie, Leon “Chippy” Achilles, was shot in Woodstock, Cape Town on Sunday in a spate of Easter weekend gang-related killings. Achilles died instantly when shots were fired from a passing Nissan Sentra at his stationery car. A second man in the car with Achilles […]
Fred Pearce takes a visit to a Kenyan valley where environmental theory has been turned on its head Jane Ngei, a 30-year-old Kenyan mother and farmer, built her own dam with an ox-plough, spade and wheelbarrow. It’s not a big dam; less than 15m across. “It collects the water running down the road after it […]