Who was . . . Moshood Abiola? Richard Synge The extraordinary life of Moshood Abiola, who has died aged 60, apparently of a heart attack, while meeting an American delegation, matches the tumultuous pageant of Nigeria’s political life in which he played such a pivotal role. Abiola first came to prominence as an accountant for […]

FRIDAY, 1.00PM: ROBERT McBRIDE, the Foreign Affairs official arrested in Mozambique three months ago on dubious gun-running charges, has released a statement explaining his side of the affair. McBride says he went to Mozambique to verify claims from Vusi Mbatha (the informer behind the Meiring report) that Alex Huambo, a former supplier of arms to […]

Chris McGreal Many will remember Chief Moshood Abiola as a political martyr denied presidential power, even though he came to prominence as an opportunist businessman, prepared to do deals with Nigeria’s soldiers until the very end. In the days before he died, Abiola had been ready to forsake his presidential claims, according to the various […]

Helen Stevenson HULLABALOO IN THE GUAVA ORCHARD by Kiran Desai (Faber &Faber) In a small town in India, a post office official yells at his slovenly staff: “You will kindly pull up your socks and begin!” There has always been a certain buffoonish comic potential in the linguistic legacy of the British in India, a […]

Liese van der Watt On show in Johannesburg No one ever speaks of “alternative” English or “dissident” Xhosas. And yet, descriptive phrases about alternative musicians, rebel poets and dissident academics are still used wherever Afrikaners, and what is assumed to be their homogeneous culture, is a topic of review. The reasons for this are of […]

Lauren Shantall If A Midsummer Night’s Dream focuses, in part, on the near-disastrous consequences of the generation gap, then director Jesse Knott’s version provides a streetwise, youth-based antidote to the problem facing today’s theatre: how to draw new audiences. She has dramatically revolutionised the original. Located in a dream world that is harrowingly familiar, the […]

European ballet and African dance forms are connecting, writes Phillip Kakaza The sun was too bright for a winter afternoon – not for me, a son of Africa, but for the Birmingham Royal Ballet dancers currently on tour in South Africa. And the English dancers’ interaction with 20 young South African dancers in a match-box […]

Neil Manthorp in Amsterdam Cricket It is funny that we call ourselves a sports-crazy nation. There has never been a sports event in South Africa that has commanded, or even demanded, that the whole population sits up and takes notice. The Rugby World Cup final is an over- used example of when this was supposed […]

Andrew Muchineripi World Cup Seventy years after Frenchman Jules Rimet “sold” the idea of a quadrennial football championship to a surprisingly sceptical world, the country of his birth has reached the final for the first time. Semi-finalists in 1958, 1982 and 1986, Les Bleus finally realised the dream by coming from behind this week to […]

Fiona Macleod `Sustainable development” of natural and cultural resources for the benefit of current and future generations is the main thrust of the draft National Environmental Management Bill, now up for public debate. Individuals and organisations have until July 29 to submit comment on the Bill, which the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism is […]