Ben Laurance and Ed Vulliamy In many ways it was a very 1990s crime. The suspected perpetrator was a loner who dressed in baggy jeans and T-shirts. He worked from home and rarely went out. The technologies of cable and satellite allowed him to surround himself with more than 100 TV sets and computer screens […]
In the mystically charged Grahamstown, more drama is taking place in the streets than on the stages and in the theatres, writes John Matshikiza `I wish people would stop talking about white and black,” National Arts Festival director Lynette Marais is quoted as saying in last week’s Sunday Times, “and just talk about a South […]
South African theatre appears to be in the doldrums of self- indulgence, even though play makers are finding plenty to say, writes Matthew Krouse The National Arts Festival has been a glorious gathering of gurus – all strutting about like peacocks. It’s their moment, a time to get what they deserve. A time for nonchalant […]
BOB Woolmer will coach the Western Province women’s cricket team at Pinelands High School on Saturday from 1pm to 3pm. The training session is part of the SA women’s preperation for the World Cup in New Zealand next year. 08
The falling gold price is making money for traders around the world, writes Belinda Beresford Champagne corks were popping in New York this week as traders celebrated their winning bets that the gold price would fall. Meanwhile, on the other side of the Atlantic in Pretoria, miners demonstrated in a desperate attempt to draw international […]
Fiona Macleod Riccardo Ghiazza, the man at the centre of the Tuli elephant furore, is being investigated by police in connection with a huge illegal animal-smuggling network. The endangered species protection unit (ESPU), a branch of the police service, is scrutinising Ghiazza’s alleged links with some of the kingpins of Southern Africa’s illegal wildlife trade. […]
Matthew Krouse Down the tube Of all the images of South African culture identifiable to the outside world, the Ndebele homestead must stand out as the one most exoticised. In pictures of homely bliss, postcards and books have portrayed neat little Ndebele communities as organised as the geometric patterns that women paint on their houses. […]
THE black empowerment Uthingo consortium will operate South Africa’s state lottery, Trade and Industry Minister Alec Erwin announced on Friday. The lottery should be up and running in six months, Uthingo chief executive officer Humphrey Khoza said at a Johannesburg news conference where the announcement was made. The lottery is expected to contribute R100 million […]
Bryan Rostron A Second Look Thabo Mbeki first prompted the comparison with talk of his renaissance. Italy has long baffled the Anglo-Saxon mind with its knack of reconciling contradictions, and today our new president displays an equally acrobatic flair for juggling opposites. Why, we now even have a pacifist as deputy minister of defence and […]
Of the half-a-million `convicts’ shipped to Siberia to fuel the engines of the Stalinist regime, only a few survived. Eventually, they were given their freedom, and a paper to say they had not committed any crime. Yet 50 years on, many are still living in their icy prison. James Meek reports On a winter’s day […]
Matthew Krouse The latest incentive to bring culture to the inner city on a grand scale will probably be greeted with scepticism from suburban quarters. It’s winter again, and inner city culture suffers historically in the cold. Working against the weather, and metropolitan apathy, the French Institute kicks off its bold plan to stage a […]
THURSDAY, 12.30PM: THE South African Under-21 team beat their English counterparts by 41-12 in their Sanzar/UAR U21 Tournament match in the second round of the event at the UWC Stadium in Bellville on Wednesday night. The South Africans, who lost 41-6 to Argentina in their tournament opener, blitzed the English with a five-try strike in […]
A peace deal to end almost a decade of civil war in Sierra Leone has been signed. But, writes Mark Doyle, many feel that the rebels are being rewarded for atrocities In a muddy refugee camp in Sierra Leone’s capital, Freetown, a two-year-old with her right arm amputated smiles a lot and seems unaware that […]
Review of the week Struan Douglas When Nelson Mandela opened the National Arts Festival’s anniversary celebrations with his compassionate shuffle on June 29, African jazz started going mad all over town. Ebbing, flowing, dipping, peaking, threatening boredom, crying unprogressive yet ensuring its longevity. We’ve had the retrospective perennials. July 1 was devoted to old timers […]
Newtown Some big projects, with big names, are being aired in yet another attempt to resuscitate the Newtown Cultural Precinct in Johannesburg, which first saw the light of day nearly a decade ago, writes Ricky Burnett Sometime in the early years of this decade Christopher Till, then director of culture for Johannesburg, described a future […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Blantyre | Friday 3.30pm. TRADERS in Malawi, worried at a wave of armed robberies and killings, have given the government of President Bakili Muluzi a month to improve security, failing which they will shut up shop. The ultimatum was issued on Thursday at a meeting between predominantly Asian traders and senior police officers. […]
Marianne Merten Police investigators probing People against Gangsterism and Drugs (Pagad) have quietly arrested at least six members of the group in the past 10 days without the usual “breakthrough” headlines that backfired on detectives in the past. This comes as Cape Town courts refuse bail to those facing charges ranging from possessing pipebombs and […]
Aaron Nicodemus Aids and KwaZulu-Natal hotels apparently don’t mix very well. Last week, participants in a workshop on Aids were nearly evicted from the Hluhluwe Zulu Nyala Protea Hotel in the north-east of the province when it was revealed that some were HIV-positive. According to Aids activist Oziel Mdletshe, who attended the workshop, the hotel […]
Cameron Duodu Letter From The North The late Joshua Nkomo is the sort of personality to which the world is exposed only once in a thousand years. A familiar figure in Accra in the early Sixties, when President Kwame Nkrumah was helping Africans everywhere to organise resistance against white rule, Nkomo could easily have passed […]
John Matshikiza With The Lid Off Maybe it’s the drugs, but I still get occasional waves of confusion, mixed with dj vu, in my day-to-day experience of South Africa. Just to remind you, I am one of those many hundreds of thousands who returned to this turf after long years of what we used to […]
Christina Patterson MANLY PURSUITS by Ann Harries (Bloomsbury) This novel, by a South African migre, comes garlanded with praise from Doris Lessing and JM Coetzee -deservedly. Set in South Africa at the end of the last century, it features many of the leading thinkers and writers of their generation – Cecil Rhodes, Rudyard Kipling, Charles […]
Alex Dodd Halfway up the main staircase of the Albany Museum, stuck to a bright red wall are the following words: “The universe is not to be narrowed down to the limits of the understanding which has been man’s practice up to now, but the understanding must be stretched and enlarged to take in the […]
University of the North vice-chancellor Njabulo Ndebele says he is proud of Edupark and its achievements.
He may be 53 and a man of God, but Al Green still gets marriage proposals every night. In a rare interview, he reflects on a life of sin, soul and stardom. Burhan Wazir reports The reverend slowly opens the door to his New York hotel room and dispenses his trademark smile. One stoutly jewelled […]
The David Gleason Column Between 1903 and 1997, 55 877 South African miners died in mine accidents. Over the same 94-year period, 47 229 tons of gold were produced from South African mines, an accident rate which implies that for every 1,2 tons of gold produced, at least one man gave his life. And over […]
Loose cannon Robert Kirby Yet again poor Mr Thabo Mbeki has been sorely misconstrued. On this latest occasion it was his pugnacious refusal to free Mpumalanga of its Premier, Mr Ndaweni “Lies-Are-Cool” Mahlangu, which got everyone up in arms. Mr Mbeki said that he would not be prepared to “worsen things in Mpumalanga” by firing […]
Women of the sports world are no longer hiding behind their skirts. They themselves are the latest fashion trend and have no reason to be modest. That was the week of women in sport. The Wimbledon women, the women’s football World Cup and the England versus India women’s cricket test series are moving to centre […]
Duncan Campbell in Los Angeles `This is my game, this is my future, watch me play” has been the marketing slogan for the women’s football World Cup in the United States. As the US and China prepare for the final at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena on Saturday, it is clear the instruction has been […]
More than a third of South Africa’s economically active population earns between R1 000 to R5 000 a month, a category that generally sitsEuncomfortably above the basic housing subsidy level, but below theEusual financial criteria needed to qualify for a conventional housingEloan from a retail bank. That’s why changes to the Pension Funds Act,Eallowing trustees […]
name, let’s call it “Madiba” and be done. – Will Bernard, Westdene I refer to the report regarding the proposed renaming of Pretoria to Mandela City, to be spearheaded by the New Nationalist Party, according to their representative, one Max van der Walt. A few years ago, the Nationalist Party turned their backs on Dr […]
Ros Coward Body Language Have you heard the one about why husbands are like lawn mowers? “Difficult to get started, emit foul smells and don’t work half the time.” It would be surprising if you hadn’t. In a culture where a man cracking similar jokes about women is instantly suspected of being a stalker, such […]
Jack Schofield & Sean Dodson What’s New Apple is expected to unveil a portable and probably colourful Macintosh computer aimed at consumers at the MacWorld show in New York later this month (July 20 to 23). The P1, which may be called the WebMate, is being made in Taiwan by Alpha Top, and is expected […]