Fiachra Gibbons Hours after picking up the last of five Oscars for his first film, American Beauty – and being declared a “bright shining star” by none other than Steven Spielberg – Sam Mendes was keeping his legendary cool. Even as Hollywood’s most powerful players queued to schmooze him at the post-Oscar parties, Mendes’s mind […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Mbarara, Kampala | Friday 6.30pm OVERWHELMED Ugandan police appealed for help from abroad to investigate the grisly deaths of up to 800 people from a religious cult gone amok in the southwest. “To the best of my knowledge, we have a low capacity. We are not able to handle cases on this level. […]
MALWIAN Finance Minister Matthews Chikaonda pledged strict fiscal discipline and action against inefficient public leaders on Thursday in a bid to further boost economic growth in the country. In a presentation to parliament’s finance committee, Chikaonda pledged a reform of government spending priorities and better management of this poor, landlocked country’s scarce resources. Chikaonda said […]
ABSA, SA’s largest bank by assets, acquired a controlling 70% stake in Tanzania’s largest commercial bank, the National Bank of Commerce, on Friday, Absa said in a statement. The stake will cost R121-million and the deal, which forms part of the Tanzanian government’s goal of financial sector reform, becomes effective from April 1. Absa is […]
Cameron Duodu LETTER FROM THE NORTH I was extremely upset when I read the report by Anthony Sampson, author of the amazingly brilliant biography of Nelson Mandela, that it had been alleged in a forthcoming book that Mandela “was recruited as an ‘agent of influence’ by British intelligence”. It is also alleged that Mandela visited […]
Marianne Merten Nature conservation in the Western Cape gets a new face from April 1 when an independent statutory board takes over from the provincial government and the old Cape Nature Conservation ceases to exist. It has taken more than five years to transfer responsibility for two million hectares of protected land, water catchment areas […]
David Beresford ANOTHER COUNTRY Predictions offered by the oracles of the scientific age, intended for the stupefacation of their contemporaries, are more often quoted to the merriment of their descendants. The thought is prompted by Britain’s Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) which has been offering its thoughts on the future of crime. They have […]
I have had the chance during the past few days to read up on your government’s decision to install an international expert commission in order to examine various aspects of the Aids issue. I am deeply troubled (like so many others) about the direction this commission is taking. Clearly, if one looks at the guidance […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Pretoria | Thursday 9.00pm TELKOM announced a change in its tariff structure on Thursday that will see the costs of calls to 24 international destinations dropped. Telkom spokeswoman Amanda Singleton said the cost cuts when into effect on Thursday. Singleton said Telkom has targeted the top 30 destinations for outgoing calls from South […]
THE Financial Services Board has added another 12 investigations to its insider trading list, in an attempt to clamp down on irregular share dealings. According to the Business Day, the FSB has also referred one other case, which involves trades in information technology company Bryant Technologies, for legal action. Trading in the shares of companies […]
World culture converges on Benoni as Womad endeavours to make a profit this year Nashen Moodley The task of bringing a world music festival, even if it is the most significant travelling festival of its kind, to a country that is severely underexposed to world music is an unenviable one. Despite fighting what many saw […]
The Maitisong Festival has been celebrated in Gaborone since 1987. Stephen Gray caught up on its 14th year Ending this week on April 1 is this year’s 10-day Maitisong Festival in Gaborone, since 1987 the huge event of theatre and other performing arts on Botswana’s cultural calendar. The line-up includes 180 (mostly local) performers appearing […]
grid Gavin Foster When the World Superbike circus lays on its first matinee of the year on Sunday, motorcycle fans at Kyalami will get to see a brand new act – for the first time in South Africa, the Sidecar World Cup will be part of the superbike show. After half a century of playing […]
Howard Barrell OVER A BARREL A problem with revolutionaries is that they tend to view themselves as indispensable. While they will say that the political change they helped secure was “inevitable”, they will nonetheless argue that their own intentional involvement was necessary to bring it about. By this curious reasoning, revolutionaries cast themselves as the […]
Peter Dickson An average of eight people have died at the hands of the police during the past five months in the Eastern Cape, while 87 people were killed in the 12 months to September 1999. The Eastern Cape arm of the Independent Complaints Directorate (ICD), the police watchdog, disclosed these figures this week in […]
Thousands of taxi commuters were stranded on the East Rand on Friday, following a seven days suspension of the Faraday Taxi Association’s licence by the government. The suspension is due to complaints received by Gauteng transport MEC Khabisi Mosonkutu of tension amongst taxi operators and the ill-treatment of communters. Buses are reported to be fuller […]
FIGHTING in the northeast of the Democratic Republic of Congo between government security forces and a rebel faction claimed over 19 lives on Thursday, a rebel chief said. Jean-Pierre Bemba of the Congolese Liberation Movement, who heads one of three rebel groups fighting Kabila’s government, has denounced the attack as a “new violation of the […]
Justin Arenstein Ousted Mpumalanga MEC for Local Government and Traffic Fish Mahlalela was axed just hours before he was scheduled to hand evidence implicating senior provincial African National Congress leaders in tender fraud to National Director of Public Prosecutions Bulelani Ngcuka. The evidence included documents and audio tapes allegedly proving that ANC provincial treasurer Jerry […]
Ivor Powell THE SNAKEBITE SURVIVORS’ CLUB by Jeremy Seal (Picador) You have to acknowledge it right from the outset: a book that is not only ostensibly but also actually about people who lived to tell the tale of being bitten by the world’s four most venomous species of snake is not the most immediately engaging […]
Marianne Merten Cape Town is hosting South Africa’s first international jazz festival this weekend – entrenching the status of the Mother City as the country’s jazz capital and putting South Africa on the global map of annual events as the only one in the southern hemisphere. The festival is a six-year long dream come true […]
Evidence wa ka Ngobeni Three policemen from the Soweto flying squad appeared in the Johannesburg Magistrate’s Court this week on charges of shooting, mutilating and killing a University of the Witwatersrand security guard whom they arrested on campus. The policemen, who have been suspended pending a police investigation, are accused of shooting Nicky Hlongwane several […]
Paul Kirk The rate of HIV/Aids infection in the South African National Defence Force may be as high as 60% to 70% while in at least one military unit, 90% of the troops are infected with the virus. These extraordinary figures, leaked this week, were taken from preliminary HIV testing being conducted by the SANDF. […]
STANDARD Bank said on Thursday the appeals court will hand down its judgment on Friday in a ruling crucial to the bank’s battle to thwart a hostile takeover from smaller rival Nedcor. Stanbic wants the appeals court to overturn an earlier decision which made the Reserve Bank and finance ministry the final authorities on whether […]
FEARLESS attack from Callie Swart, who fired every approach shot straight at the flags, earned him the day’s best round of 64 for a two round total of 133, nine-under par, and a two shot lead over Andre Cruse after the second day of the FNB Botswana Open, at the Gaborone Sun on Friday. The […]
Antjie Krog’s new play is about dialogue – across colour and history, and paint Michael Rautenbach Viewing Antjie Krog’s play Waarom is Di wat Vr Toyi-Toyi Altyd So Vet? at Potchefstroom’s Aardklop festival last October, critic Stephen Gray noted it was “surely destined to become a classic in the repertoire”. Now translated by Krog into […]
Howard Barrell A fresh crisis has struck the government’s attempts to promote small businesses – the key thrust in its strategy to reduce South Africa’s dangerously high rate of unemployment. A revolt has broken out among staff members at Ntsika – the government agency tasked with promoting the provision of services to small businesses – […]
The highly romanticised notion of what a journalist’s work is all about is responsible for the lack of representation of women in the media Khadija Magardie The Human Rights Commission’s (HRC) hearings into racism in the media produced an interesting, though not entirely novel offshoot. Both participants and prominent media persons testifying at the hearings […]
South Africa take on Pakistan speedster Shoaib Akhtar and his suspect bowling action in the Sharjah cricket final Neil Manthorp With apologies to Shoaib Akhtar, Pakistan threw down the gauntlet for today’s Sharjah final with enough force on Tuesday to send shock waves through the rest of the cricketing world. When South Africa’s 14- match […]
Shaun de Waal THE BIOGRAPHICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF JAZZ by Leonard Feather and Ira Gitler (Oxford) VISIONS OF JAZZ: THE FIRST CENTURY by Gary Giddins (Oxford) THE HISTORY OF JAZZ by Ted Gioia (Oxford) W ith the North Sea Jazz Festival about to swing on to the shores of our southern seas, this would seem a […]
THE inquest into the death of Cape Town druglord and Hard Livings gang leader Rashaad Staggie has ended. According to Advocate Willie Viljoen of the Investigative Directorate Against Organised Crime the recent arrest of People Against Gangsterism and Drugs co-ordinator Abdus Salaam Ebrahim for the murder of Staggie in effectively put a stop to the […]
ETHIOPIAN Prime Minister Meles Zenawi warned on Friday that eight million people in his drought-stricken country are threatened by famine. He has complained of a slow response by the international community to help prevent a repeat of the mass starvation of the mid 1980s. Ethiopia is the worst-affected of the seven East African countries where […]
Andy Capostagno GOLF The Masters is just around the corner and, as has become the norm, it’s a case of who can possibly beat Tiger Woods. The hottest golfer on the planet has made fools of the odds makers so regularly that he is as low as 125-1 to win not just the Masters, but […]