Marion Edmunds The Cape justice system was in the dock in Parliament this week when the province’s portly attorney general, Frank Kahn, was forced to acknowledge his impotence in the face of escalating gangsterism and crime. Angry Cape Flats residents filled the benches on one side of the old senate chamber, across the aisle from […]

V Roger Prabasarkar : Cricket Despite two wonderful victories against Pakistan and the West Indies on Monday and Tuesday, South Africa still had not made certain of a place in the final of the quadrangular one-day tournament, Hansie Cronje’s assertion to the contrary at the post-match prize giving function notwithstanding. With so many accidents befalling […]

Melvyn Minnaar : Potable pleasures Despite a multitude of folkloric fixes and other frivolities – or the remedies mothers-in-law dictate over the phone when the baby needs to be fed at dawn – there is no instant cure for the hangover. If you haven’t taken enough Essentiales or Prohep (that means a handful) the night […]

A new musical about the famous saxophonist Kippie Moeketsi is in rehearsal at Windybrow. Gwen Ansell watched It’s been said you can classify creative artists as Apollonian or Dionysian. The Apollonians are the cool intellectuals who think their shit out logically and fastidiously, eschewing guts and passion: it was probably their crew who invented New […]

Matthew Engel The current election is one that President Moi ought to lose. Coming from a small tribe, the Kalenjin, he has no natural power base and the three main tribes – the Kikuyu, Luo and Luhya – are all against him. To win on the first ballot, Moi needs a plurality rather than a […]

Johnny Masilela Chief Lucas Mangope’s political comeback has been smacked by a stream of high-profile defections from his United Christian Democratic Party (UCDP) – among them his own sister. It has also emerged that Roelf Meyer’s and Bantu Holomisa’s United Democratic Movement (UDM) is the main beneficiary of Mangope’s losses. Celia Ditsetelo, Mangope’s younger sister […]

The local branch of a church probed for fraud was behind a bid for Capital Radio, writes Suzy Bell Quima Investments last week failed to win its licence bid for Capital Radio because it neglected to reveal vital information to the Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA), including details of a controversial backer. The consortium was slapped […]

The impudent truth commissioner Stefaans Brmmer Truth commissioner Dumisa Ntsebeza is impetuous, arrogant (or very confident, depending on your vantage point), ambitious and fiercely independent. Add to that an almost naive openness and you have someone asking to be beaten up on, leaving his guard way down when the knock-out punch is thrown. By Monday […]

FRIDAY 10AM: The owners of small and medium-sized businesses are “deeply pessimistic” about the cost, low productivity and general hassle factor of the low-skill labour market, according to survey results announced on Thursday by the South African Institute of Race Relations. The survey, conducted among 300 businesses, found the rate of unemployment 6% lower than […]