Winnie Madikizela-Mandela is likely to bounce back from the apparent public humiliation of her last-minute withdrawal from the deputy presidency race – after garnering paltry support on the conference floor – by coming out tops in elections for the national executive committee (NEC). The result – due out on Saturday – will ensure her survival […]

Janet Smith The pigeons were shitting all over irreplaceable original artworks, so Lesley Cohn came up with a simple but brilliant solution to the problem: chicken wire in the eaves. If only the pungent details of The Bag Factory’s outstanding rates bill with the Transitional Metropolitan Council (TMC) were as obvious to unravel. More than […]

Two Sandton-based ex-military generals of the late Mobutu Sese Seko have been held for travelling illegally, reports Ann Eveleth Two of former Zairean dictator Mobutu Sese Seko’s closest military cohorts – arrested in Johannesburg on Saturday – allegedly spoke openly about their plans to topple Mobutu’s successor, Laurent Kabila, in an uprising which had been […]

Ruaridh Nicoll The Himba chief stared at the anthropologist who had just asked him to describe what he did. A moment passed before he answered: “I attend meetings and I make love to my three wives.” The Himba wander the vastness of Namibia’s skeleton coast. They drink milk, wear calf- skins, and style their hair […]

FRIDAY, 12.30PM MERRILL Lynch, the merchant bank, has been awarded the post as lead transaction adviser for the partial privatisation of South African Airways. The public enterprises ministry said it had initially received 11 applications for the position, with a shortlist of four having been drawn up last month. Public enterprises ministry adviser Kennedy Memani […]

Gavin Evans : Boxing Boxing’s geriatric decade may be ready for a new twist when Thulane “Sugarboy” Malinga fights Britain’s Robin Reid for the WBC supoer middleweight title on Friday night. Throughout his career Sugarboy has been such an erratic boxer that you never know who is going to turn up – the brilliant dazzler, […]

Swapna Prabhakaran Despite efforts at affirmative action, a large number of the country’s black graduates still find themselves unemployed, unlike their white counterparts. Recent statistics supplied by the Human Sciences Research Council and Central Statistical Service show that almost a quarter of the country’s black graduates in 1996 are now jobless, while almost 98% of […]

Police display South Africa’s crime history in a museum that is brought to life by actors, writes Donald GMcNeil “Yaaaaaaaaa!” Bursting out of the darkness at the end of the corridor, the screaming man charged right into the crowd, his razor-sharp machete flashing above his head. People slammed back against the walls, screaming too. Captain […]

Stephen Gray : Unspoilt places `Madikwe!” said Oom Schalk Lourens, “yes, I know it. That’s what the Tswanas call our Marico River, because of its rusty colour – the River of Blood. But now with all this new community involvement, we don’t talk of all the bloodshed in those forgotten wars. It’s peace time now, […]

The Johannesburg mortuary is preparing for the holiday bodies of evidence, writes Emeka Nwandiko Dr Vernon Kemp has a face you would never forget. But chances are if you were to come into contact with him you would not see him because, most likely, you would be dead. The face of the director of the […]