Fossil remains first discovered five years ago were presented to the world this week Elisabeth Lickindorf Sensational fossil remains presented this week at Wits University have been dubbed Orpheus and Eurydice by their discoverer, Dr Andr Keyser, “because they came from the underworld”. The remains were stumbled upon by amateur helpers volunteering on a dig […]
Grant Shimmin OLYMPICS But for one slight problem, Brendon Dedekind would be ideally placed to step into the gulf left by the injured Bobby Skinstad as the poster boy of South African sport. He’s got it all – bar a stud through his tongue – striking good looks, a torso you’d struggle to push a […]
Another controversial finding by the truth commission is threatening the credibility of the amnesty process Piers Pigou The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC)came to yet another controversial finding last week when it granted amnesty to 10 former security policemen for their role in the murder of Mamelodi activist Stanza Bopape in June 1988. The decision […]
Neil Manthorp There are many compelling reasons to start the inquiry into Hansie Cronje’s confessions as soon as possible, but the most pertinent for the immediate health of the national team is the growing “rumour circus” that is threatening the sanity of the remainder of the cricket squad. So just how many games were affected? […]
PHILIP PANK & SUSAN NJANJI, Harare | Friday 4.00pm. ZIMBABWEAN war veterans’ leader Chenjerai Hitler Hunzvi began a national tour on Friday, urging squatters on white-owned farms to renounce violence and wait peacefully for a share of the land. Hunzvi was accompanied by Commercial Farmers’ Union vice president Nick Swanepoel after talks in the capital […]
sector Glenda Daniels The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) president, James Motlatsi, who stepped down at the union’s 10th national congress in Pretoria this week, is expected to join the Mine Workers Investment Company. The union would not confirm Motlatsi’s move to the private sector, but sources said this was the case. The veteran trade […]
Iden Wetherell CROSSFIRE ‘African regional leaders have rallied behind President Robert Mugabe and Zimbabwe’s principled stance on land,” crowed Harare’s Sunday Mail – the ruling Zanu-PF party’s main mouthpiece – after the Victoria Falls talks where Mugabe met with three neighbouring heads of state last weekend. This triumphalist message was reinforced by Minister of Information […]
Cedric Mayson SPIRIT LEVEL ‘God is not a Christian,” is a typical Desmond Tutu sound bite. He uses it to restrain his too-churchy colleagues from tying God up in hymn books, creeds and clerical collars. Many sincere but misinformed Christians find it difficult to accept that they worship the same God as the Jews and […]
Riaan Wolmarans Hot on the heels of this weekend’s countrywide Global Underground parties with Dave Seaman comes an equally exciting event – the Gatecrasher Disco- Technology Tour, brought out by ICE Productions, Ericsson and 5fm. The Gatecrasher clubbing phenomenon started as a bank-holiday party in Birmingham in 1994, and from these humble beginnings it quickly […]
ZIMBABWEAN police on Friday charged Obed Zilwa, a South African photograper who works for the Associated Press, with the bombing of pro-opposition Zimbabwe newspaper, the Daily News. “He is being charged with throwing or planting a bomb with the intention of destroying a building,” Jonathan Samkange, the lawyer representing Zilwa said. If convicted, Zilwa could […]
Paul Kirk Judge Willem Heath has criticised the appointment of a commission of inquiry by the KwaZulu-Natal government to investigate charges against the province’s MEC for Welfare and Population Development, Prince Gideon Zulu. The appointment of the commission followed several exposs in the Mail & Guardian about alleged corruption in Zulu’s department that appeared to […]
Gwyn Topham discovers the Web’s answer to Egoli If Web-based digital entertainment to date has generally consisted of little more than dancing hamsters or slapping a Spice Girl, all is set to change with Freeserve’s move to bring custom-made Net drama to a browser near you. Online Caroline, which appeared yesterday for the first time […]
The Gabon experience takes you back to the Seventies. It’s costly but rewarding, if only for the expansive rainforests Savannah Sefor The hardest thing to find in Gabon are the Gabonese. It’s not the only strange contradiction in the tiny West African state where forests cover more of the land than people. It’s one of […]
David Pallister Robert Mugabe may be losing friends around the world at an alarming rate but he still has one unusual and influential capitalist supporter in Uckfield, southern England. Nicholas Hoogstraten (54) a controversial property multi-millionaire who regards hikers as the scum of the earth, and his tenants and women with even more contempt, has […]
BRONWEN ROBERTS, Johannesburg | Friday 10.15pm. CHINESE President Jiang Zemin left for home late on Thursday after a four-day state] visit to South Africa marked by the signing of a declaration calling for a new world order. Jiang made a pilgrimage on Thursday to Robben Island, off Cape Town, where former president Nelson Mandela was […]
Donna Block Zimbabwe’s annual tobacco auction is one of the biggest events on the country’s economic calendar and is usually cause for fanfare and celebration. But when the trading floors opened for business this week there was little to cheer about. Caught between threats to their property from militant landless blacks and economic conditions that […]
WHAT’S NEW Virgin hopes to ship the first cellphone with a built-in stereo MP3 music player this summer. As usual, users will download MP3 music files to their phone via a PC. Richard Branson says: “Why carry a player and a separate mobile when you can have both in one small digital device?” Answers include: […]
Neil Thomas TAKING STOCK Behind the corporately correct “we support fuller disclosure” one could hear the wails of anguish from Sandton and the city centre when the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) published its new draft listing requirements last week. Too cynical? Perhaps, but the new regulations are certainly going to upset a lot of people […]
Neil McIntosh The company many like to paint as the Internet’s David finally got its slingshot working again last week. Netscape, once synonymous with the Web and the Internet boom, unveiled its latest Web browser a day after Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson delivered his damning findings of law against the Internet’s Goliath – Microsoft. The […]
SIX West African nations have signed an agreement to adopt a common currency by 2003, the Wall Street Journal reports. A joint declaration last week by leaders of the English-speaking countries of Ghana, Nigeria, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Gambia, as well as French-speaking Guinea, also calls for possible monetary union with eight francophone West African […]
Peter Dickson and Barry Streek One of the Eastern Cape’s most influential lobby groups for farm workers and dispossessed rural communities, the Transkei Land Services Organisation (Tralso), warned this week that the slow processing of land claims in the aftermath of apartheid could lead to Zimbabwe-style property invasions in the impoverished region. “The issue cannot […]
In her next book, JK Rowling’s trainee wizard Harry Potter will discover that ‘girls are quite interesting’ Stephen Moss There was no sex in the books I read as a child – and I rather liked it that way. Would William have thought of kissing Violet Elizabeth Bott? Did Julian harbour fantasies about George (or […]
Air Gabon flies to Libreville from Johannesburg and back once a week on a Sunday. Tickets cost about R3 880, call (011) 289-8114. Before you leave, a yellow fever injection is a state requirement: your certificate will be checked at the airport on arrival in Libreville. You will also need to take malaria medication. We […]
Andy Capostagno RUGBY The Super 12 has reached the point of no return. Those coaches who have invested in slide rules to calculate the lowest number of log points required to reach the semi- finals can throw them away on Monday if their teams lose this weekend. That goes for John Connolly of the Reds […]
A BI-NATIONAL agreement aimed at boosting trade between South Africa and Vietnam was signed in Pretoria on Tuesday. Trade and Industry Deputy Minister Lindiwe Hendriks said the agreement will open the doors of trade for both countries and that it will serve as a legal framework to safeguard the interests of the businessman. Amongst other […]
Maggie Davey On my first day of boarding school, at evening prayers in the chapel, the clergyman played a trick on us. He whispered something to the people seated in the pews nearest to him and asked them to relay the message to those of us in the back pews; a distance covered of at […]
Mary Dover Taller than the Eiffel Tower in Paris, the Burj Al Arab or Arabian Tower – the world’s first seven star hotel – has opened in Dubai. The hotel is part of a three-part leisure paradise along the Jumeirah coastline, combining the Jumeirah Beach Hotel and the recently opened Wadi Wadi waterpark, which boasts […]
Claude Kabemba CROSSFIRE In his book, Africa works: Disorder as Political Instrument, Patrick Chabal gives an account of African leaders who orchestrate violence for political gain. This book gives a clear account of what is going on in Zimbabwe. While President Robert Mugabe’s Zanu- PF’s approach to land can be justified, it is also true […]
Heather Hogan Home owners, already taxed to the hilt, can expect to face yet another burden if the new Property Rates Bill, which aims to tax the public on the value of all improvements made to their properties, is passed. Ratepayers who already pay varied amounts on the value of the land will now have […]
THE Truth and Reconciliation Commission has about R290-million sitting in its coffers, but cannot distribute it to apartheid victims because it does not have the necessary clearance from the government. To date about R31-million in urgent interim relief has been distributed to victims, Hlengiwe Mkhize, head of the TRC’s reparations committee, said on Monday. The […]
Matthew Krouse CDs OFTHEWEEK Ns (Hannibal) is Virgnia Rodrigues’s second album. According to Internet sources she is a 35-year-old ex- manicurist and domestic worker from the slums of Salvador. On the cover of her latest album you can see the star of Salvador, who now makes her music in Brazil – centre of the Latin-American […]
World-wide, rap is a billion-dollar industry, but in South Africa it still has a way to go Thami Masemola Myth: country music outsells everything in the United States. Fact: rap music is the biggest selling genre in the $6-billion annual US market, capturing close to 15% of it. Myth: only black inner-city youth are into […]