The battleground in Zim remains the farms where invasions are not only about land but also votes Chris McGreal in Wedza Comrade Edward Musuaka’s note was to the point. “The hour has come to take what is rightfully ours. You have clearly shown us that you have ill feelings against the land issue. If you […]
Andy Capostagno RUGBY Two years ago when the Crusaders came to Durban they were regarded as Super 12 interlopers. They had lost three of their first four matches in the tournament, together with the then All Black captain Justin Marshall, victim of an Achilles tear in the second match of the season. The Sharks had […]
Popular steel pan musician Andy Narell is back in South Africa to share a melting pot of pan-American sounds Nicky Blumenfeld Gentle and unassuming, steel pan virtuoso Andy Narell is otherwise “your regular kinda guy”. Besides the fact that he has a musical gift, what makes him different is that a series of chance encounters […]
John Brand Last week’s “Bosses mustn’t have babies”, was a shocking story. The shock, however, lay in the reporting, not the judgment. The story was a litany of twists and distortions, distressing enough in themselves but made doubly so when read in the light of the editorial, a few pages on, that employed the ringing […]
GHANAIAN mining company Ashanti Goldfields, which was brought to the brink of collapse by severe cash-flow problems, announced on Wednesday a pre-tax loss and record gold production. For the year ending December 31, Ashanti said its earnings before exceptional items dropped to $66,1-million dollars from $73,9-million the year earlier. After an exceptional charge of $250-million […]
John Matshikiza WITH THE LID OFF I was 10 years old in December 1964. We had crossed the border between independent Zambia and a Rhodesia that was less than a year away from declaring its unilaterally independent status as a white-ruled entity that, said Ian Smith, would last for at least a thousand years. The […]
But the TRC’s extraordinary decision will not lay the controversy surrounding the young activist to rest Piers Pigou With the stroke of a pen and seemingly little thought or reasoning, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) granted amnesty in late February to the four men who confessed to killing student activist Sicelo Dlomo on January […]
Daniel Taylor There has not been such a kerfuffle in Stamford since its last famous resident passed away in 1809. The townsfolk have waited a long time to fte a home-grown celebrity, and the emergence of the archetypal local-boy-done-good could hardly have gone unnoticed in a town which is usually prefixed by the word “sleepy”. […]
The small town of Vermaaklikheid could provide a model for low-cost housing Barry Streek The Cape Town holidaymakers who descended on the southern Cape village of Vermaaklikheid 15 years ago were a mixed blessing for the local community. They created jobs – but they also created a housing shortage, buying sites and farm workers’ cottages […]
Barry Streek The South African Police Service (SAPS) has a shortage of 7E000 personnel and 371 vehicles, according to Minister of Safety and Security Steve Tshwete. It will need an extra R7,8-million to hire the personnel and R471,5-million to finance the vehicles, Tshwete said in reply to a question tabled in the National Council of […]
A SOUTH African Air Force pilot was killed and three soldiers were injured when they were forced to land in Mozambican on Thursday. The names of the pilot and the injured soldiers have not been released, until their next of kin have been informed. SAAF spokesman Major Louis Kirstein said the soldiers were conducting a […]
Marianne Merten ‘I am a man with three children. My wife earns R11,10 each day. I earn R29 a day.” Dressed in an immaculately ironed shirt which has faded to off-white with age, this farm worker from Ceres in the Western Cape wanted to remain anonymous. His story, told to the Employment Conditions Commission last […]
Deon Potgieter BOXING Jon Robinson, president of the World Boxing Union (WBU), came out in favour of bringing back 15-round world title fights at a boxing convention held in Cape Town recently. Although the matter has been placed under review, if the WBU does revert to the 15- round fight as opposed to the 12-round […]
Judy Barnes Investing is a personal matter, and first impressions are usually inherited from family. When urged, an individual will begin “informing” you. This is a serious subject, requiring a grave countenance and a low voice. Investments constitute solemn stuff, and whatever daddy advised is almost always regarded as gospel. Investments include savings accounts, unit […]
Andrew Muchineripi SOCCER With Sundowns winning again in midweek and now just nine points away from a third consecutive Castle Premiership title, the Bob Save Super Bowl represents the sole hope of salvation for Orlando Pirates and Kaizer Chiefs. Not that Sundowns are going to let them have it all their own way, as they […]
A GROUP of Senegalese dancers who vanished after a performance in Berkely in the United States still had not been heard from on Thursday by the promoters who backed their US tour. More than half the members of Ballet d’Afrique Noire apparently opted to slip into the anonymity of the San Francisco Bay Area’s multi-ethnic […]
Ebrahim Harvey CROSSFIRE At the outset I must make it clear that not only do I not represent this paper or work for it, but I also have some serious differences with the views of some of its columnists and editorials. However, the latest outrageous accusation of the ruling party against the paper compels me […]
Caroline Sullivan BODY LANGUAGE ‘Just what did you buy at the sex shop, Liz?” asked a headline in last week’s The Mirror. The paper managed to concoct a full-page story out of a picture of Elizabeth Hurley walking out of a Hollywood adult emporium called Hustler, with a carrier bag full of … well, no […]
the working classes SERJEANT AT THE BAR One of the key concerns of legal study is to analyse judges’ decisions to see how they are influenced by unarticulated assumptions and prejudices. There is no need to do that with Judge Nigel Willis’s recent decision in the case of Woolworths v Whitehead. His assumptions are proudly […]
Howard Barrell Government plans for the biggest shake-up of the civil service in decades will be unveiled next month when Minister of Public Service and Administration Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi tables new pay and retrenchment packages. Fraser-Moleketi briefed the Cabinet in Cape Town on Wednesday on personnel audits done by provinces and central government departments. The audits […]
WHAT’S NEW Missing toddlers and truanting teenagers could soon be things of the past with the development of a revolutionary satellite tracking system which willenable parents to keep an eye on their children 24 hours a day. A tiny gadget called KidBug will enable parents to monitor the movements of their children – and the […]
David Beresford ANOTHER COUNTRY The best chance of some degree of immortality nowadays would appear to lie with the hope of being dug up by a palaeontologist. It is a prospect which troubles me for various reasons including concern that one day they will find my skeleton and will speculate about my life without taking […]
Paul Kirk A top official in the Department of Home Affairs and one of Minister Mangosuthu Buthelezi’s closest aides has been raped in her Ulundi home. The official, who has asked not to be identified, was surprised in her home by a single attacker who, after severely assaulting her and tying her up, raped her […]
Grant Shimmin BOWLS If the World Bowls 2000 tournament, which draws to a close with the singles final at Marks Park, Johannesburg, tomorrow afternoon, has achieved one thing, it’s to dispel to the casual observer the image of the sport as “old man’s marbles”. To the ardent follower, the presence of a healthy crop of […]
The squeaky-clean captain of South Africa has thrown the game into chaos. I’m not entirely bowled over Matthew Engel It was, as one sage put it this week, as if Queen Elizabeth had been caught fiddling her taxes. If anyone was making a book on the next cricketer to be exposed in a betting scandal, […]
Hazel Friedman’s new book about Norman Catherine uncovers his unique conceptual space ‘Twas a dark and stormy night …” Actually it was nothing of the kind last week when Norman Catherine celebrated 30 years of artistic output with an exhibition and the launch of the book Norman Catherine. One almost felt that at any moment […]
Grant Shimmin HOCKEY The South African Hockey Association (Saha) has decided to appeal to the executive board of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in an attempt to overturn the exclusion of their men’s side from the Olympic team for Sydney. The decision is an indication of their determination, in the words of president Clare Digby, […]
Nokia, Ericsson and Motorola, the three giants of cellular phones, this week joined forces to create a standard for delivering secure transactions on mobile handsets by 2001. The move is designed to fuel the rise of mobile commerce, such as banking or buying train tickets with a cellphone – a process the three companies say […]
Johann Kirsten CROSSFIRE Concerns about the viability and justification of the new approach to land reform by the Minister of Agriculture and Land Affairs, Thoko Didiza, have been raised since she announced her new approach in February. But Didiza’s new approach is an appropriate intervention when one considers that the land reform programme went off […]
The pharmaceutical goldrush triggered by Viagra has forced female sexual dysfunction out of the bedroom and into the market place Maureen Rice Viagra started it. When the drug went on sale in 1998, it changed the sexual landscape as significantly as the birth control pill. Suddenly men were talking about their impotence in public and […]
Byzantine world of cricket betting Vikrant Gupta and V Krishnaswamy in New Delhi When Hansie Cronje, or the Australians Mark Waugh and Shane Warne before him, tell us that they only “provided information and forecasts” and did not indulge in “match- fixing”, they fool only the naive. In fact, this “inside” information gives the bookie/punter […]
Ryan Coetzee CROSSFIRE When the Democratic Party first released All Power to the Party, a description and analysis of the African National Congress’s Cadre Policy and Deployment Strategy, many major newspapers simply ignored it. The one publication that devoted an editorial to the document rejected our analysis and, bizarrely, pronounced us “guilty of McCarthyism” for […]