Paul Kagame has been elected leader of Rwanda by an overwhelming majority in Parliament Gregory Mthembu-Salter Major-General Paul Kagame was elected president of Rwanda on Monday by 86 people. Kagame received 81 votes and his rival, secretary general of the ruling Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) Charles Murigande, the remaining five. The electorate was the Cabinet […]
Isabel Hilton COMMENT Zimbabwe celebrated the 20th anniversary of her independence yesterday with the murder of a second white farmer. This was another government-inspired outrage on the way to what threatens to be a deliberate descent into a more general, armed conflict over Zimbabwe’s colonial legacy. Two decades ago, Robert Mugabe subscribed to a different […]
TRADE and Industry Minister Alec Erwin said that SA has attracted foreign direct investment of R91,9-billion. Speaking in Parliament, Erwin said SA ranks just after China and Brazil among the most popular emerging investment destinations. He said SA’s move up four notches in the world competitiveness rankings has not gone unnoticed by foreign investors. However, […]
Gregory Mthembu-Salter While tensions flared in neighbouring Zimbabwe last weekend, the Zambian government reassured its predominantly white commercial farmers and the international community that there would be no farm invasions in Zambia. Agriculture Minister Suresh Desai said instead, “Zambia has plenty of land that needs to be developed to enhance economic development.” Desai’s remarks characterised […]
Larry Elliott The timing could not have been better. Everybody, but everybody, from the global financial community was in town for the spring meetings of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and what happens? Shares go crashing on Wall Street. For someone who has long argued that the United States has been […]
Mikkel Beck was a fan of the chef, so he invested in the restaurant Jim White Traditionally, the only contact footballers had with the catering trade was buying a pub the moment they stopped playing. Which, to be fair, was merely falling in line with expert opinion that it is always enriching during retirement to […]
THE country’s 1999/00 has been estimated at 9,19-million tons, up from last month’s figure of 9,18-million tons, the national crops body said in its third estimate. The white maize crop — due to be harvested from May — was put at 5,51-million tons and yellow maize production was seen at 3,68-million tons, the National Crop […]
Nicky Holford BODY LANGUAGE Carol Esslemont remembers lying in a mud bath in Abano Terme, a small spa town near Padova in northern Italy. She’d left her children and husband at home in Britain but she didn’t feel guilty. “About five years ago I started going on holiday alone,” she says. “At first I felt […]
they can take it from me’ Chris McGreal Gladman T waited for a week after the first squatters moved in before he fashioned a dozen wooden stakes, walked to a far corner of the farm he has worked on for most of his adult life, and pegged out a claim to a small piece of […]
Marianne Merten A piece of South African history was sold last weekend when 20 000 items from the refurbished Blue Train went on auction in Cape Town. The memorabilia that went under the hammer in Cape Town last Saturday included everything from an industrial- sized, peppermint-green toaster to ice cream scoops, pots, butler’s ties, toiletry […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Cape Town | Thursday 12.00pm SOUTH Africa’s premier fast bowler Allan Donald will be available for the Proteas until April 2002 after agreeing a new contract with the United Cricket Board. Donald’s decision comes as a ray of good news for the beleaguered UCB in the wake of the Hansie Cronje scandal. Donald, […]
Connie Selebogo The South African Roadies Association (Sara) may be boycotted by both the South African and international entertainment industry after being sued for R2,5- million by its most important client, Big Concerts. The company claims Sara defamed both it and its managing director, Attie van Wyk by accusing it of racism. Sara is prepared […]
Khadija Magardie A series of pamphlets on HIV/Aids have been written with specific commercial and industrial sectors in mind. The briefs are the result of a joint project by the University of Natal’s health economics and HIV/Aids research division (Heard) and UNAids. A set of 28, the pamphlets outline projections on the impact that HIV/Aids […]
Barry Streek Publisher David Philip has changed hands to emerge as the major black-controlled book publishing house in South Africa. A majority share of David Philip Publishers (DPP) has been sold to New African Publications (NAP), a subsidiary of New Africa Investments Limited’s newly formed New Africa Media (NAM). Meanwhile three prominent black academics, Professors […]
BoE, which recently announced plans to unbundle its non-core assets, has that it had disposed of all its shares in New Africa Investments Limited (Nail) and AMB Holdings. BoE said in a statement that it has received R748-million in cash from the disposals, but added that the sales will not have a material effect on […]
A case of police brutality is being investigated after a youth died in custody in the Eastern Cape Peter Dickson Three Barkly East policemen were suspended without pay this week after the death of 16-year-old Siphiwe Zide, who was allegedly dragged alongside a police van and his head crushed under the wheels when he collapsed. […]
Jaspreet Kindra Embattled Inkatha Freedom Party MPL Phillip Powell, who is currently being investigated by the National Directorate of Public Prosecutions, has left the country. The investigation relates to at least 20 tons of armament sent to Powell by former Vlakplaas commander Eugene de Kock in preparation for possible war ahead of the 1994 general […]
Mark Espiner Calgary Bay. Fine white sand and clear aquamarine water. A biting wind coming in off the Atlantic. A remote and beautiful spot on Scotland’s western isle of Mull. Isolated. I sat in the car parked up on the beach, looked out to America and read the decaying and rusting sign planted boldly above […]
Mary Dover People all around the world can watch the African sunset or a lion kill, or track leopard spoor when the “CNN of the bush”, Africam.com, launches its first live nature and game viewing footage on the Internet in July. Wildlife viewing might sound “ho hum” to many South Africans but consider the appeal […]
Microsoft is in the dock again, but Bill Gates isn’t bothered. No, it’s not a story you missed. It’s the year 2010 Jamie Doward ‘I have nothing to say about this. I hold only a tiny stake in Microsoft these days. We faced charges of being a monopoly and acting anti-competitively in the past and […]
Just as his new film, All About My Mother, confirms his status as a master, Pedro Almodvar is about to swap Europe for the US Damon Wise The day Pedro Almodvar’s latest movie, All About My Mother, made its European debut at Cannes this year was the day the festival truly started. Until then, Cannes […]
Dalene Matthee’s new novel deal with the first interracial family at the Cape under the Dutch Jane Rosenthal Dalene Matthee, who is rather smaller than one would expect from the authority and stature of her novels, appeared promptly for a hotel breakfast interview. She applied herself politely and diligently and with increasing eloquence to a […]
John Matshikiza WITH THE LID OFF Politics is funny. Innuendo is even funnier. Innuendo brought into the service of politics is funny as hell. A lot of people who didn’t know they were in the middle of a game of political innuendo were brought to their knees and died, not realising that it was all […]
It’s full steam ahead as Rustlers Valley prepares for its big moment this Easter Claire Bezuidenhout Travelling to Rustlers Valley from Durban by bus – along with Germans, Belgians and one future “big time” London DJ wannabe – we arrived at the Amphitheatre Backpackers at the perfect point of the evening, where evening dew meets […]
Drastic changes could shake South Africa’s public service if proposed plans are implemented Howard Barrell and Glenda Daniels South Africa’s 1,1-million civil servants face a revolution in their working conditions if the government has the political will to get its plans past suspicious public service trade unions. The government is due to unveil new pay […]
In an international scoop, we have obtained the authentic transcript of the telephone conversation between Hansie Cronje and the London bookmaker that resulted in Cronje receiving $8 200 for match “forecasting”. Shan: Hello, Hansie? Shan here, calling from London. Did Joe tell you I’d be calling? Hansie: Hello Shan, nice to meet you. Yes, Joe […]
David Jays SMILE PLEASE by Jonathan Keates (Chatto & Windus) Adam, the central character in Smile Please, has a favourite gay sleazepit where you can take a break from the business of grapple and groan to “discuss early Antonioni or the Shostakovich cello sonata”. As in Alan Hollinghurst and Edmund White, Jonathan Keates’s novel ripples […]
l www.travel-2-africa.co.za Searchable online travel agency with info on fishing, hiking, golfing, railing and hunting. Specialised guides to Swaziland, Malawi, Lesotho, South Africa, Zambia. l www.getaway.co.za A fabulous searchable site with archives on plenty of destinations as well as info on a variety of environmental topics. l www.ananzi.co.za/outthere Articles for adventurous travellers. l www.ananzitravel.co.za Virtual […]
David Beresford ANOTHER COUNTRY There is a curious document identified as “MC/M353” in the Oliver Tambo collection of papers at the University of Fort Hare in the Eastern Cape. The document, it should be said at the outset, is undoubtedly a fake. It is written as a “memorandum” in the form of minutes of a […]
Neil Thomas What a start to the millennium! Investment professionals’ forecasts have basically been wrong, but unit trust investors who stuck to their own views have largely been well rewarded. So scratch up one point for individual investors, nil for the investment industry. Late last year, among much nervousness about Y2K and an accompanying shift […]
Michelle Matthews ‘Though celebrating the strides that women have made in the dance scene, this is no patronising event,” assure Sleaze Syndicate regarding its Chicks with Decks party. The pejorative is probably less disturbing than the pun, which insinuates that dicks and decks are the natural order. Unfortunately, the perception is valid, with the Cape […]
Tim Adams THE MARRIED MAN by Edmund White (Chatto &Windus) Edmund White has always trawled his own intensely sexual life in his novels, and since that sexual life has charted the course of gay liberation, his books have been beautifully candid political acts. His last novel, The Farewell Symphony, was a vast valediction to his […]