Andrew Worsdale Movie of the week I remember taking my first cap of LSD (it was only a quarter) in 1982 when I saw Steven Lisberger’s Tron, which had Jeff Bridges as a computer programmer caught up in a game. The drugs and, for that time, dazzling special effects seemed to cancel everything out. I […]
Donna Block Share World They say variety is the spice of life. So if you’re looking to spice up your investment portfolio, warrants could be just the ticket. Warrants are a right to buy or sell a specific asset at a specific price for a designated period of time. They make it possible for investors […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Doris Lessing joined the communist party in Rhodesia, left two children to go to England, and then explored mysticism. Emma Brockes finds the iconoclastic author has a talent to explore, move on and surprise It was in a caf in Bulawayo, Southern Rhodesia, that Doris Lessing received her first, rather clumsily delivered death threat. This […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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, […]
Makhosini Nkosi The Inkatha Freedom Party could suffer a serious setback in KwaZulu-Natal if the African National Congress presses ahead with efforts to have the election in the town of Nongoma declared not free and fair. Senior KwaZulu-Natal ANC sources said the party intends bringing an application to the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC)to have the […]
Haroon Bhorat One of the key dilemmas facing the government is to eradicate, or at least reduce, poverty. The first step is to understand which are the most affected groups. In the labour market there are three groups which together explain more than 80% of the poverty in South Africa. They are unemployed people, domestic […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Kampala | Friday 11.20am SOME 40 Libyan soldiers have flown into Uganda — uninvited — in a “premature” bid to impose peace in the neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo, a Ugandan minister said on Friday. The Libyan foreign ministry announced on Thursday that “Libyan forces have arrived in Uganda to form the vanguard […]
Charlotte Denny Uganda has added its voice to calls for an overhaul of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) heavily indebted poor countries initiative (HIPC). In a letter to British Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown, Ugandan Finance Minister Gerald Ssendaula called for speedier debt relief. Currently, countries must spend six years on […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Cape Town | Thursday 4.00pm. A FORMER leader of the Democratic Party and veteran of liberal politics in South Africa, Zach de Beer, died at age 70 in Cape Town on Thursday after suffering a stroke. De Beer died at his Cape Town home, long-time colleague Colin Eglin said. De Beer quit politics […]
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 […]
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 […]
Evidence wa ka Ngobeni An attempt to broker peace between two notorious Western Cape gangs by taking them to the mountains was sabotaged a week before it could start. The National Peace Accord Trust had arranged to take the rival gangster groups on a “transformation trail” in the Drakensberg in KwaZulu-Natal last week. The aim […]
Kate Wilson It used to be that food was only considered authentically African when consumed in a boma with 40 American tourists suitably appalled at the prospect of dining on the kudu they’d gleefully photographed on the game drive an hour before. South Africans’ first experience of the West African staple, Jollof rice, was probably […]
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 […]
WEDNESDAY, 7.00PM: SOUTH AFRICA rattled up an impressive 283/7 in their alotted 50 overs against Minor Counties at a cold and blustery Stone on Wednesday, with veteran all-rounder Brian McMillan scoring 79 runs in his stand at the wicket. The 34-year-old, dropped for the one-day Texaco series, cracked seven fours and four sixes off the […]
THE appeal of former president PW Botha (83) against his conviction for ignoring a Truth and Reconciliation Commission subpoena was postponed to be heard in the Cape High Court on Friday. The postponement is to allow for outstanding matters. Botha was convicted last August for ignoring a summons to testify to the commission, thereby contravening […]
ERNIE Els exceeded his own expectations with a superb 66 to take an early lead in the first round of the Deutsche Bank-SAP Open on Friday. The 29-year-old South African had not played for five weeks after the Masters in April before arriving at St Leon-Rot to take on the best field in Europe outside […]
PRESIDENT Nelson Mandela will attend Saturday’s inauguration of Nigeria’s new civilian president Olusegun Obasanjo, his office said on Wednesday. Mandela is to leave for Nigeria on Friday, a presidential statement said. The president had originally been scheduled to address a major election rally in the Indian Ocean city of Durban on Saturday to mark the […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Harare | Thursday 1.00pm. THE World Bank says that for the first time since independence in 1980 Zimbabwe has failed to service its foreign loans on schedule, a report in Thursday’s independent Financial Gazette said. The Gazette said it had a copy of a letter from World Bank president James Wolfensohn to International […]
SEVERAL Zimbabwean soldiers are missing in the war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, but the army will only give details when the war ends, a Zimbabwean newspaper reported on Wednesday. “It is only at the end of the campaign that I … will compile a report which details all we have lost in […]
ABOUT 10 men armed with AK47 and R4 assault rifles robbed a coal mine in Secunda of over R1-million meant for salaries early on Tuesday morning, police said on Wednesday. Police spokesman Inspector Sibongile Nkosi said the men stormed the Sasol Brandspruit Coal Mine at about 4.30am when a security company delivered the money. “About […]
LEICESTER manager Dean Richards on Monday backed new England captain Martin Johnson to make a success of his dramatic and sudden promotion following Lawrence Dallaglio’s decision to step down. British Lions skipper Johnson, who led Leicester to the Premiership title this season, takes charge of England following Dallaglio’s resignation, announced at Twickenham earlier on Monday. […]
MORE than five million Malawians have registered to vote in general elections on June 15, the electoral commission said on Wednesday. Chairman James Kalaile said the voters represent 102% of the projected number of eligible Malawians. Voter registration has been hit by a number of problems, causing it to be extended twice and forcing a […]
A PETROL bomb has exploded at the house of a leader of South Africa’s United Democratic Front in Nyanga, a black suburb of Cape Town, police said on Wednesday. Nobody was injured in the attack on Erasmus Ndakane’s home in the area where five politicians have been killed in the run-up to South Africa’s June […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Cape Town | Thursday 7.15pm AN election rally by opposition United Democratic Movement president Bantu Holomisa was disrupted at the University of Cape Town on Thursday by a rowdy group of African National Congress-supporting youths. About 1000 rowdy ANC supporters almost took charge of the rally, jeering Holomisa when he tried to speak, […]