Steve Bunce BOXING When Cindy Zamudio torched the toilets at her high school in Los Angeles she had no idea she was on her way to the boxing ring. She was ready for a career in prison. Zamudio is 18 years old and 121kg. She is the super-heavyweight amateur champion of the United States and […]
Justin Arenstein Former Mpumalanga premier Mathews Phosa has assembled a rogue’s gallery of disgraced politicians and shady financiers to fund his new R390-million casino hotel development in Maputo. The deal is one of a series involving Phosa and other prominent Mpumalanga figures under investigation by South Africa’s Scorpions unit and police commercial crime teams. Scorpions […]
Jaspreet Kindra As the Democratic Party flirts with the New National Party and the African National Congress espouses almost Thatcherite ideas, black consciousness parties and the Pan-Africanist Congress can safely claim to be the only ideological purists left in South Africa. Last week the Socialist Party of Azania (Sopa), the Azanian People’s Organisation (Azapo) and […]
Paul Kirk A group of United States pollution experts has described the air south of Durban as “toxic soup”, saying that the oil refineries around the city are emitting up to eight times the internationally acceptable amount of benzene. The survey by an American NGO, Communities for a Better Environment, detected a variety of other […]
Mercedes Sayagues Why was Grace Mugabe sulking during her husband’s final campaign rally in Harare last Saturday? It could have been the low turnout – a mere 5E000 compared with the 100E000 who greeted Robert Mugabe on his return from exile 20 years ago. Or perhaps it was the three-hour delay in starting, while frantic […]
Howard Barrell OVER A BARRELL Helen Suzman was speaking with little fear of contradiction. “Some odd characters,” she told the assembled Democratic Party faithful on Monday, “have been joining the party.” She had the good grace this week – at a ceremony to name the DP’s parliamentary caucus room in Parliament after her and to […]
Meet the judges who will be presiding at the prestigious Investing in the Future Awards Mail & Guardian reporter An impressive panel of opinion-makers have agreed to judge the Investing in the Future Awards. The awards laud corporate social investment in South Africa and were established over a decade ago by the Mail & Guardian. […]
Helene Dancer CD OFTHEWEEK LTJ Bukem does in his debut album just what Daisy Buchanan does to Jay Gatsby in F Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby:he puts you in a little cloud and pushes you around. United Kingdom musician and DJ LTJ “Danny Williamson” Bukem has this year released Journey Inwards on his Good Looking […]
and the hairy horn Glenda Daniels A 125-strong workforce from an East Rand factory went on strike after their boss refused to allow a witchdoctor into the premises to investigate why they were suffering rashes, impotence and headaches. When the witchdoctor was eventually allowed in, he discovered a piece of hairy animal horn, the removal […]
Peter Robinson Over the past few weeks South African cricket has been twisting and turning in mostly self-inflicted agony. But now we know the “Hansiegate” scandal not to be the product of bumbling Indian policemen or even, as was suggested at one stage, a devious Australian plot, what exactly is to be done next? In […]
Plenty of people have modelled themselves on him, but Tom Waits has never slunk in anyone’s shadow Tom Cox We are complete numbskulls to believe it’s true, of course, but there’s a brief moment at the Rex Theatre in Paris when several thousand of us think that we just may have been given Tom Waits’s […]
Belinda Beresford Position, position, position is the guiding maxim in property. But Donald Gordon, former head of Liberty Life and now head of Liberty International, is finding that possession is equally important. Having, metaphorically speaking, built a palatial mansion in South Africa called the Liberty Group, Gordon moved on to the more select address of […]
A WARRANT of arrest has been issued against presidential spokesman Parks Mankahlana for failure to appear in an Mpumalanga maintenance court. Mankahlana is being sued for child maintenance by Thalitha Mthetwa, 37, who claims he is the father of her eight-year-old son. Mthethwa and her lawyer waited hours for Mankahlana to arrive before the court […]
LIBYA has welcomed a decision by the United States government to cease classifying Libya and six other countries as “rogue states”. The United States earlier this week dropped the use of the term “rogue state” from its foreign policy lexicon in favor of the broader categorization “state of concern”. US State Department spokesman Richard Boucher […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Thursday 1.30pm. THE UN Security Council and ministers of six West African states have discussed putting Sierra Leonean rebel leader Foday Sankoh on trial, but they disagree about the scope of the charges. Speaking to journalists, the ministers recalled that Sankoh was amnestied under a peace agreement signed last year for […]
EGYPTIAN archeologists have discovered two limestone tombs modeled on the design of the Great Pyramids of Giza. They were built by the builders of the pyramids for themselves and not for the kings, but the authorities did not say if their mummified bodies were found inside them. “The two tombs were conceived on the inside […]
THE South African Chamber of Business has approved a proposal that the organisation merge with the National African Federated Chambers of Commerce Nafcoc. The merger has been negotiated over the past six months. The agreement is however seen as a stab in the back of the Afrikaanse Handelsinstituut which had its eyes on uniting with […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Durban | Wednesday 5.45pm. THE South African cricket squad gathered in Durban on Wednesday to prepare for their upcoming three-nation tour, as their sacked captain was being grilled at the King Commission inquiry into corruption in Cape Town. The squad, now captained by Shaun Pollock, leave next Friday to travel to Sri Lanka, […]
AXED cricket captain Hansie Cronje had accumulated a considerable personal fortune from professional cricket, and hardly need to accept the lure of easy bribe money. Cronje on Wednesday told the King Commission he estimated he had earned some R9 million in sponsorships and endorsements since 1995, in addition to the salary he earned from the […]
HANSIE Cronje has admitted to leaving an amount of R3000 he received for providing forecasts out of his testimony on Thursday, saying that it was an oversight because it was made late at night and that he was “not in a good state.” Cronje told the Commission that he “struck up a relationship” with Marlon […]
FOR two months a 27-year-old man allegedly managed to pass himself off as a court orderly in the Nelspruit Magistrate’s Court by dressing up in a police uniform with a false police ID card and a toy gun. But police caught up with him last week, when they arrested him in a shop in the […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Cape Town | Wednesday 6.20pm. SACKED South African cricket captain Hansie Cronje admitted Wednesday that his love of money led to his becoming involved with gamblers and bookmakers and, ultimately, to his downfall. Giving testimony at the King Commission of inquiry into match-fixing here, Cronje claimed, however, that he had also been driven […]
STORMERS skipper Corne Krige will replace injured flanker Rassie Erasmus in the second Test against England, says Springbok coach Nick Mallett. Erasmus was ruled out with an ankle injury suffered in the Springboks’ 18-15 victory in Saturday’s first Test. Krige replaced Erasmus midway through the first half of the match. The South African side will […]
DEFENDING champions South Africa showed that they will again be the team to beat with a 79-8 thrashing of Tonga in the opening game of the Southern Hemisphere Alliance Tournament at North Harbour Stadium on Wednesday. South Africa led 31-8 at half time and maintained the scoring momentum in the second half, amassing 13 tries […]
TIGER Woods was “near perfect” says Ernie Els, who finished third in the US Open after the rampaging American won by 15 strokes, finishing on 272, 12 under par. His 15-stroke victory not only shattered the Open mark of 11 set by Willie Smith in 1899, but was the largest ever in a major championship, […]
STEVEN MANN, Cape Town | Wednesday 12.00pm. DISGRACED cricket skipper Hansie Cronje has taken the stand to start his cross-examination in front the King Commission of inquiry into his alleged involvement match-fixing. Cronje’s psychiatrist told the King Commission earlier on Wednesday that the disgraced former cricket skipper is suffering from “clinical depression” but will be […]
STEVEN MANN, Cape Town | Wednesday 6.10pm. A CONTRITE Hansie Cronje on Wednesday disclosed that more than R139000 had been deposited into his bank account in January 1997, and while he had no idea where it had come from, he thought it had been an additional payment from Indian bookmaker Mukesh Gupta. Previously Cronje had […]
A LONDON journalist who has been close to the Indian side of the Cronje affair, on Tuesday revealed there are tapes alleged to be of further conversations between Cronje and Hamid “Banjo” Cassim the day after the first one-day international between India and South Africa in Cochin on 9 March, the Cape Argus reports. Journalist […]
A SENIOR member of the Zulu royal family has been arrested in connection with the death two weeks ago of Nongoma mayor and Inkatha Freedom Party leader Joseph Sikhonde. Police spokesman Inspector Sabelo Zwane said the prince was arrested in Nongoma. His arrest brings to four the number of suspects arrested in connection with Sikhonde’s […]
UNIVERSITY of the Witwatersrand students are occupying the vice-chancellor’s office in protest against the retrenchment of 623 workers. Members of the Students Representative Council, South African Students Congress, the Postgraduate Students Association and the National Education, Health and Allied Workers Union vowed they would not leave Professor Colin Bundy’s office until their demands are met. […]
THE Truth and Reconciliation Commission rejected an unspecified amnesty application by the high command of the Azanian People’s Liberation Army, the former armed wing of the Pan Africanist Congress. Granting the application would have amounted to a general amnesty, which was not provided for in legislation governing the work of the TRC, the commission said […]
THE government of Sierra Leone has asked the UN Security Council to set up an international tribunal on crimes against humanity to try rebel leader Foday Sankoh and others. Information Minister Julius Spencer said on Tuesday that the government had requested a tribunal on Sierra Leonean soil to operate under a combination of local and […]