Without funds from the provincial government, some farm schools in the region have been forced to close Lynda Gilfillan Schoombee Trust School is one of the luckier farm schools in the Eastern Cape. It’s still open. But throughout the province schools are closing because the provincial education department has paid neither boarding nor transport subsidies, […]
Angry residents in the Northern Province are threatening to take action over delays in land claim settlements, reports Jaspreet Kindra Land claimants in the Northern Province are threatening to boycott the local government elections, and have joined other claimants across the country in threatening “Zimbabwe-style” invasions. The disgruntled claimants have found an unlikely ally in […]
DURBAN Roodepoort Deep announced on Wednesday that executive chairman Roger Kebble is standing down and would become a non-executive director of the company. It said that Mark Wellesley-Wood will take over the reins as non-executive chairman and Mike Prinsloo will remain as chief executive officer. Wellesley-Wood, a mining engineer with 20 years experience in investment […]
Glenda Daniels and Barry Streek The African National Congress and the government tied themselves up in knots this week, trying to reconcile ANC secretary general Kgalema Motlanthe’s call for a war against capitalism with the country’s investor-friendly macroeconomic policies. At a Workers’ Day rally, Motlanthe commended the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) for […]
James Montier SHAREWORLD The European Central Bank (ECB) finally managed to get internal consensus last week and raised rates to 3,75% from 3,5%. Essentially, the bank was in a lose-lose situation. If it raised rates it could be seen as panic induced by the weakness of the euro. A decision not to raise rates would […]
Two top British poets are among those coming to Durban’s poetry festival Merle Colborne There was a time when poetry was thought of as something only people who spoke posh, wore tweed skirts or jackets with leather elbow patches and drank their tea from bone china cups could enjoy. Now aficionados include those who talk […]
DAVID SHAPSHAK, Johannesburg | Friday 9.15pm. THE Cats engineered a late fightback to beat the Blues 34-27 win at Ellis Park Stadium in Johannesburg on Friday. The home side were trailing 20-22 with 13 minutes remaining, before fullback Thinus Delport set up two tries, capping a sterling performance which saw him make the only try […]
Ebrahim Harvey LEFT FIELD What future do trade unions have? The recent conference of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) in Durban was the most important international union meeting held in South Africa. But coming at a time of the birth of a new millennium, as rapid globalisation is threatening unions as never […]
Bill Elliott GOLF The blazered battalions of the Royal and Ancient Golf Club (R&A) of St Andrews will be defrocked for this year’s Open in July. In a remarkably forward-thinking move for the conservative R&A, the famous blazers will be dispensed with for on- course officials and replaced by … windcheaters. For the first Open […]
Lack of international experience could thwart Siyabonga Nomvete’s plans to move to Sunderland Neal Collins in London Sunderland’s bid to sign South African striker Siyabonga Nomvete could be derailed by work permit problems. Manager Peter Reid has let it be known that he is “very interested” in the Bafana Bafana goalgetter – but fears the […]
ROB DAVIES, Cape Town | Friday 2.00pm. THE Cats will face up to the Auckland Blues at Ellis Park on Friday night looking for a maximum haul to steer them closer to a play-off spot as the Super 12 enters its final two rounds. After a disastrous tour of the Antipodes, the Cats have managed […]
Has Old Skunk Head gone soft? America’s foremost writer, critic and cultural guerrilla has a new book out – an historical romance Maureen Freely In the Sixties she was the high priestess of the avant-garde, and America’s most Parisian intellectual. She took the French New Wave to New York and forced the American Old Wave […]
A legal battle over a genetically modified rodent is putting the lucrative mutant mouse industry under the microscope James Meek In October a jury in San Francisco will make a decision in one of the new millennium’s most bizarre and complex court cases. Teams of elite lawyers will have spent weeks studying and arguing over […]
Michelle Matthews One of the more recent flyers advertising Soft Serve 2: Art at Play posed a riddle to Capetonians: “Q: What are squares scared of? A: Vicious circles.” The queue outside the National Gallery on Friday will be a long one. While the flock instinct is strong, however, it doesn’t fully explain why an […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Thursday 4.35pm NEW car sales in April were encouraging despite the number of public holidays during the month, according to the National Association of Automobile Manufacturers of South Africa. Latest figures released by Naamsa showed that 14827 new passenger cars were sold in April, some 1354 units or 10% more than […]
headache Mercedes Sayagues To many Zimbabweans, Morgan Tsvangirai is nothing short of a hero. The man stands up to a repressive government. He denounces corruption, defends workers’ interests and rights, and chairs the movement to reform the Constitution. For his troubles he is bashed on the head and needs stitches. The attack appears ordered by […]
Barry Streek A new body to help South Africans come to terms with their past and develop the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) to promote “nation- building”, is to be officially launched in Cape Town next week. “The post-1994 years were marked by a sense of goodwill and optimism regarding reconciliation. We […]
The ICC announces swingeing penalties and an anti-corruption investigation Mike Selvey at Lord’s The International Cricket Council (ICC) this week demonstrated, in the strongest terms it can muster, its commitment to cleaning up the sport by announcing a package of measures to counter corruption, including life bans for those found guilty of match-fixing in any […]
JULIA Mashele and her co-accused Johannes Makhanye were acquited and discharged on 32 counts ranking from theft to kidnapping and murder in the Pretoria regional court on Friday morning. Mashele and Makhanye, who were alleged to have been involved in organised crime in the Soshanguve area north of Pretoria, hugged each other as the public […]
You can make your dreams come true without resorting to crime, young people heard at a Freedom Day concert I’m in the Beemer with two-thirds of Shana when the new Boom Shaka tune, Change Your Mind, hits the airwaves from Durban Youth Radio. Nathi, one of the chiselled young singers of Durban’s hot new kwaito […]
Jaspreet Kindra President Thabo Mbeki has organised a top- level meeting with traditional leaders aligned to the Inkatha Freedom Party to address the amakhosi’s concerns that their power base in KwaZulu-Natal will be eroded by new local government structures. The traditional leaders, who have been pressing Mbeki to hear them for several months, are to […]
Jaspreet Kindra Two tribes near Louis Trichardt have been invading state-run bluegum plantations after failing to push through an official claim to the land. After their claim to their ancestral land – located atop the bluegum-covered Rivola mountain – fell on deaf years, the Shangaan and Venda-speaking communities inhabiting either side of the mountain decided […]
One of South Africa’s most senior prison officials has been linked to a slew of political assassinations Paul Kirk KwaZulu-Natal’s newly appointed deputy director of correctional services, Russel Ngubo, is being investigated by the elite Scorpion unit and the police for at least 30 murders. Ngubo – who is also an African National Congress councillor […]
Merle Colborne LIFESTYLE The Friday-night crowd at the Flagons and Dragons pub in Durban’s Windermere Road have “lived-in” faces or, at least, faces that have been “stayed over in” a good few times. Loosened by lyrics and beer, the men hug a lot and stare damply into each other’s eyes. The women smile, the way […]
Heather Hogan Two of the four banks operating in Yeoville are leaving because of crime and a lack of investment from local businesses, increasing the isolation of the already struggling suburb and its various communities. Nedbank is closing its Yeoville branch on May 31 and Standard Bank will follow on June 9, leaving residents and […]
Mary Dover Picture the scene: you’ve just arrived at your four-star holiday hotel to find the paint peeling off the walls, the room smelling dank and pubic hairs in the bath. Not quite what the brochure promised but what recourse do you have now that the star system is redundant? Most of us have grown […]
Shaun de Waal CDs OFTHEWEEK Compay Segundo will be familiar to lovers of the Cuban music brought to international attention by the Buena Vista Social Club CDs and documentary. In case you’ve forgotten, he’s the nonagenarian who smokes those big fat cigars. The first singer to record a 78 in Cuba (in 1934), he was […]
After four years in the wilderness, Damien Hirst, the hooligan genius of the art world, is back Gordon Burn Four years ago, for his last major show, at the Gagosian Gallery in New York, Damien Hirst made a piece featuring a giant beach ball bobbling on a column of air. The ball was multicoloured and […]
M&G reporters The London and Frankfurt stock exchanges have agreed to merge, creating Europe’s largest stock market and a powerful regional counterweight to Wall Street, the London Stock Exchange announced this week. The London exchange and Germany’s Deutsche Boerse would each own 50% of the new entity, which is to be called iX, for International […]
Neil Thomas TAKING STOCK Sentiment is a strange thing. When warm and positive it can inspire people to great heights. When negative, it can easily result in doubt and destruction. It’s also hard to measure, at least in any rational way. That’s what makes it so difficult to try and second-guess the international investment community’s […]
Internationally and locally the term ‘the art of shopping’ has been given new meaning Kathryn Smith The Pet Shop Boys spelt it out for us: “S.H.O.P.P.I.N.G. – We’re shopping.” Malls, fleamarkets, boutiques, 24-hour garage shops – it really doesn’t matter. According to CNN, the Chinese government recently declared a seven-day shopping holiday. Wanting to appear […]
Shaun de Waal MOVIE OFTHEWEEK The phantasmagoric imagination of Tim Burton seamlessly combines the adult sensibility of the horror tale and the cartoony delights of a children’s story, using a fairytale form to deal with death, destruction and the rest of the darker side of the human psyche. It is this vision that provides Burton’s […]