A new crisis, a new premier, but firms enriched by the end of communism go on salting cash away, writes Simon Pirani Russian prime ministers come and go – Sergei Stepashin is the fourth in 14 months – but the flight of capital is constant. It flows through semi-legal and illegal channels into assets denominated […]
Barbara Ellen Body Language Not so long ago, the world seemed to be full of women only too eager to invest in shop-bought tits. These days, it seems to be more about downsizing. In a nod to Amazons hacking their right breasts off because they interfered with shooting arrows, a British policewoman explained last week […]
Shaun de Waal THE LIVES OF ANIMALS by JMCoetzee et al (Princeton) JM Coetzee’s is the only name that appears on the cover of The Lives of Animals, but he is not the book’s sole author. His text, however, a long two-part story, is the centrepiece around which the others revolve. This text was delivered […]
FACup Andrew Muchineripi Soccer For FA Cup read Bob Save Super Bowl, for Manchester United read Kaizer Chiefs, for Newcastle United read SuperSport United. The Red Devils defeated the Magpies 2-0 on the green turf of Wembley last Saturday and it would come as no surprise if the Amakhosi triumph by the same margin this […]
Alex Clark THE HOURS by Michael Cunningham (Fourth Estate) Michael Cunningham’s new novel – winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction -may have been inspired by Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway (working title: The Hours) but it quickly slips free of these moorings to become a far more daring, imaginative project than might be implied by […]
Deon Potgieter Boxing The cards will be stacked against Lehlo “Hands of Stone” Ledwaba at the Carousel, Pretoria, on Saturday night. He’ll be stepping into the ring against former World Boxing Association bantamweight world champion John Michael Johnson hoping to become the third South African this decade to hold the International Boxing Federation’s junior featherweight […]
Matthew Krouse Down the tube It would be dangerous to flippantly dismiss Felicia Mabuza-Suttle’s current attack on evil as a crowd-pulling attempt at sensationalism. But in the way she presents herself, Mabuza-Suttle gives one no choice. The first part of her double show on child abuse, broadcast on SABC1 on May 24, was a case […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Pretoria | Thursday 8.00pm ONLY 770 votes were cast abroad on Wednesday, preliminary figures released by the Independent Electoral Commission on Thursday reveal. Chief electoral officer Mandla Mchunu said total is a preliminary one as not all figures have reached the IEC yet, and exclude diplomats. Mchunu said he is not overly concerned […]
Peter Makurube For the next two weeks, Johannesburg city will be in feelgood mode because jazz pianist Pat Matshikiza is in town. His sojourn begins on Friday night (May 28) at the Bassline and ends next weekend when he heads for Kippies in the Newtown Cultural Precinct. Hopefully, Matshikiza’s presence in the city will rejuvenate […]
Robert Kitson Rugby England have a new captain, whatever the result of the Rugby Football Union’s (RFU) inquiry into allegations that Lawrence Dallaglio took and supplied illegal drugs may be. Martin Johnson, the captain of British club side Leicester, will lead his country on the forthcoming tour of Australia and the subsequent World Cup with […]
With its quirky approach Chris du Plessis’s programme But Is It Art? has offended the `intellectuals’ of the art world. For him that might be it’s greatest success. Alex Dodd reports Chris du Plessis is on a rampage. “I think the intellectual influence on the arts is getting a bit much. There’s this whole, esoteric […]
By the time the next issue of this newspaper hits the streets our second general election will be over, Thabo Mbeki will be president-elect (as opposed to designate), the African National Congress will be the ruling party (probably with a two-thirds majority, as well as with KwaZulu-Natal) and many of our readers will no doubt […]
ANDREW MUCHINERIPI, Johannesburg | Thursday 4.00pm. FOR FA Cup read BobSave Super Bowl, for Manchester United read Kaizer Chiefs, for Newcastle United read SuperSport United. The Red Devils defeated the Magpies 2-0 on the green turf of Wembley last Saturday and it would come as no surprise if the Amakhosi triumph by the same margin […]
Graham Hayman Universities are heading for a crunch with the mainstay of the government’s policy on education, the National Qualifications Framework (NQF). Eventually, all tertiary institutions will have to meet the requirements of the South African Qualifications Authority, which created and administers the NQF. If they do not, they risk losing their government subsidies and […]
again A Super 12 rugby victory has once more slipped away from SouthAfrica. Andy Capostagno looks at some of the reasons for the failure Prepare the cold soup, it’s an all-New Zealand final. The Super 12 has again eluded a South African team, just when it seemed that the Stormers offered the best chance since […]
DEXTER CRUEZ, Colombo | Thursday 11.00am. SRI Lankans blasted their former cricketing heroes on Thursday for their dismal showing at the World Cup in England and said it is time captain Arjuna Ranatunga resigned. Sri Lanka, the shock winners of the 1996 World Cup, lost a crucial match against India by 157 runs on Wednesday, […]
Phillip vanNiekerk >From the Editor’s Desk Back in 1987 I helped a friend who was standing for the Labour Party in the northern England seat of Grimsby in the election of that year. The constituency organiser was a man whose day job was a garbage collector for the council and he had a grimy set […]
Tara Turkington Northern Cape Premier Manne Dipico is confident he will be back in his office the week after next. At 40, the country’s youngest premier is charming in a down-to-earth and engaging way. “Take me as Manne, man,” he says with a flick of his wrist, “I’m just Manne.” Dipico stayed the five-year distance […]
Mungo Soggot Mafia boss Vito Palazzolo surfaced in the Johannesburg High Court recently to bat off extraordinary claims that two Johannesburg businessmen paid him R2-million for the use of his police contacts. Although Palazzolo only gave evidence, he retained former Witwatersrand attorney general, Klaus von Lieres und Wilkau, SC, to sit in on his testimony […]
Nobody will ever mistake Manchester United for anything other than the product of Alex Ferguson’s irresistible will. The team who, on Wednesday, attempted to return the championship of Europe to Old Trafford after an absence of 31 years are so identifiably Ferguson’s that the mark he has put on them might have been made with […]
Aids was a topic this week on SAfm’s morning talk show, hosted by Tim Modise. Donald G McNeil Jnr responds to some of the issues raised Dear Tim Modise, Iam the New York Times reporter who wrote the story about chimpanzees that are the source of the Aids virus being shot for the pot in […]
SAM Ramsamy will be a member of an International Olympic Committee (IOC) reform commission meeting next week, the National Olympic Committee of South Africa (Nocsa) said on Thursday. Ramsamy, the president of Nocsa, will be one of 80 delegates on the commission which meets for the first time in Lausanne on Tuesday. The commission was […]
The David Gleason Column Now that the euphoric Mandela years of transformation are about to become history, the hard part will begin. The imperative for the next president will be to deliver growth. And that, given the bizarre policy actions adopted by the Reserve Bank, is being made more difficult daily. Governor Chris Stals is […]
WEDNESDAY, 1.30PM: SOUTH Africa’s women’s hockey team lost their final pool match at the World Cup against Australia in Utrecht, but gave the girls from down under quite a runaround in the match, which ended at 5-2. The score may look like a walkover, but the Australians had to pull out all the stops to […]
THURSDAY, 1.30PM: THE Sports Ministry mooted legislation on Wednesday enabling it to intervene in sports affairs “when things go wrong”. The Sports and Recreation Department is responsible for promoting sports and recreation, but has no statutory authority to do so. In addition, the duplication of the functions of the department and those of other sports […]
Roger Ballen’s photographs are simple black and white images. The reactions they provoke are far more complex. Brenda Atkinson delves beneath the surface Arranging to interview Roger Ballen was becoming difficult. Not because he was difficult to get hold of, but because he insisted, holding me to the prospect like someone in a photograph, his […]
Howard Barrell Over a Barrel A senior member of our new security and intelligence apparatus, who has professional frustrations the like of which could give a hippopotamus anorexia, has begun sounding more cheerful recently. “Why?” I asked him a few weeks ago. “Because,” he said, “things are going to change. We are getting ourselves a […]
Nigeria’s transition to democracy will come full circle on Saturday. Chris McGreal reports Nigeria’s first elected president in two decades will be sworn in on Saturday to grapple with a plundered treasury, decaying infrastructure and unrest in the oil fields, while wondering if there’s a soldier waiting to take his job. President Nelson Mandela is […]
Donna Block The bullion price has sunk to new 20-year lows amid heavy fund selling, and the barbarians are at the gate once again. Most analysts agree the short-term outlook for gold is decisively negative. Traders, speculators and hedge funds are taking advantage of that negative sentiment and keeping the downward pressure on the metal […]
all In a recent edition of the American Bar Journal, the problem of race in the legal profession received comprehensive analysis. Black lawyers speak of glass ceilings in white legal firms, black jurors refer to the manner in which they are distrusted by white counsel and black candidates for judicial office report on significant racial […]
Brenda Atkinson We’ve been driving past them for months now, rows of posters from which well-fed men beam at us, assuring us of political prosperity with a variety of tawdry one- liners. There’s the dubious double entendre of “The guts to fight back” (Democratic Party); the sheer poetry of “Die span met ‘n plan [the […]
Aaron Nicodemus A Joubert Park clinic nearly killed a pregnant woman last week during an illegal abortion. The abortion was performed on a 32-year-old Soweto woman who was seven- and-a-half-months pregnant, nearly four months past the legal limit. The woman was sent in a metered taxi from the Hillcrest Family Planning Clinic on May 13 […]