Ted Leggett As if the South African Police Service (SAPS) wasn’t in enough hot water over the filming of police brutality by BBC-TV, it recently had to deal with a series of attacks from the country’s deputy president. At an election rally in the Indian suburb of Chatsworth recently, a police member asked Thabo Mbeki […]
Sarah Bullen Russian-born director Sergei Bodrov saw the setting for his new feature film Hoofbeats, a big-budget production by Columbia TriStar Pictures, in Solitaire. Solitaire – best described as a tiny enclave somewhere in the middle of Namibia’s endless Namib desert – has very little going for it apart from a caf, a petrol station […]
John Matshikiza:WITH THE LID OFF Abstraction rules. I am one of many abstractions, queuing with my faceless peers for the chance to vote for abstract promises. Crime will be defeated. There shall be jobs and housing. Your neighbours shall end up loving you as you love them. An abstract situation. A man looks at me […]
Tangeni Amupadhi Namibian artists are outraged over what they call “apartheid-style censorship” rearing its head in their democratic country. The outrage was sparked by the Namibian government’s decision to withdraw financial support for a popular play scheduled to be staged at the Market Theatre in Johannesburg next week. The Ministry of Basic Education and Culture […]
THE Angolan state oil company, Sonangol, has signed a $575-million loan agreement with Union Bank of Switzerland, state television said in a broadcast monitored by the BBC. It said the four-year loan to Sonangol, backed by an oil sale contract between the Angolan oil company and British Petroleum, was signed in London on Tuesday.
Mercedes Sayagues:BODY LANGUAGE I saw my ex-boyfriend for the first time in the 10 months since we broke up. We live in different cities and I went to his for a reporting job so it seemed natural to look him up for a friendly chat. As we sat over a ridiculous, formal lunch where we […]
Andrew Worsdale Movie of the week `I took a course in speed reading and was able to read War and Peace in 20 minutes. It’s about Russia.” Or “My brain is my second-favourite organ.” These are two gem one-liners from Allen Stewart Konigsberg, who was born in Flatbush, Brooklyn, New York in 1935. In 1952 […]
Howard Barrell:OVER A BARREL One of my more frequent experiences these days is being told by African National Congress supporters that I am a reactionary. There are various grounds for the charge. One is my backing for the spirit of pluralism and mutual tolerance that pervades our Constitution. The more common ground, however, turns out […]
SOUTH Africa has achieved much in the five years since its first democratic elections and its reforms are on track, but much remains to be done to end the legacy of apartheid, according to the World Bank. “This government inherited a very tall agenda … on the economic side, from our point of view, it […]
Crack cocaine is one of the most popular drugs in the Cape Peninsula. Marianne Merten reports Crack cocaine, or “rock” as it is known on the street, is fast becoming the drug of choice in the Cape Peninsula, according to researchers, addicts and drug counsellors, but the South African Narcotics Bureau (Sanab) regards it as […]
With only two ministers expected to retain their positions, speculation about the look of the new Cabinet is growing, writes Howard Barrell Speculation is increasing in political circles over the composition of Thabo Mbeki’s first Cabinet after the elections on June 2. Most attention is focused on who will become deputy president and who will […]
Friday night Isaac Chokwe and Tim Horwood We left the office at 7.06pm, unaware of what lay ahead on this autumn Friday night. At the intersection of Jan Smuts and Empire roads I noticed a movement through my open window and glanced to my right … but nothing happened, no one ran up to the […]
Dan Wylie takes a look at some recent volumes of South African poetry In the hand, Jeremy Gordin’s Pomegranates for My Son (Random House) feels solid, the font unpretentious on a cover of warm amber whose texture is at once rough and even. Ditto for the contents. These poems are generous as a bear hug, […]
MORE than 45 pick-up trucks armed with anti-tank guns, anti-aircraft weapons and heavy machine-guns arrived in the south-central Somali town of Baidoa on Wednesday to protect a shipment of shillings due to arrive. The battle-wagons are manned by militiamen loyal to warlord Mohamed Hussein Aidid and the currency thought to be heading to Abdulrashid Shire […]
Andrew Muchineripi Soccer The draw for the 1999 African Champions League club competition was particularly kind to Sundowns as they dodged potentially awkward opponents from Angola, Zambia and Zimbabwe in the preliminary rounds. They duly disposed of enthusiastic but limited Telecom Wanderers of Malawi in the first round, with burly Nigerian striker Raphael Chukwu scoring […]
There’s no need to worry about global warming, argues Dennis Avery. History shows it will lead to great benefits `Climate extremes would trigger meteorological chaos – raging hurricanes such as we have never seen, capable of killing millions of people; uncommonly long, record-breaking heat waves; and profound drought that could drive Africa and the entire […]
Tom McGhie Computer games company Eidos has teamed up with rock star David Bowie, his wife Iman, and the best-selling author Michael Crichton in two deals designed to create hit games. Eidos has signed a long-term publishing deal with Timeline Studios, North Carolina, for games based on original material to be written by Timeline co-founder […]
A South African film is making a big impact in Cannes. Janine Stephen spoke to some of those involved in the production Start popping corks and quaffing champagne: a South African film has been shortlisted for a Palme d’Or award at the international Cannes Film Festival. It is only the second time in the festival’s […]
Was Belgium’s King Leopold II a mass murderer on a par with Adolf Hitler, or a greedy despot who turned a blind eye to a few excesses? Stephen Bates reports As the sun sank slowly over Brussels, its fading rays glinted off the glass domes and towers of the magnificent Victorian greenhouses in the grounds […]
Mail & Guardian reporter The state has dismally failed South African women who are raped, according to a new study. Coming at a time when the lobby seeking to protect the interests of rape victims has become more vocal, the research shows that the number of people convicted for rape, as a proportion of rape […]
opportunities lost Bob Mattes Clear-sailing? Open-field running? Steaming towards a two-thirds majority? Mixed though they may be, all these metaphors apply to the situation the African National Congress now finds itself in. How did it get here? As recently as eight months ago, the ANC enjoyed the support of only a half of all voters, […]
who? Howard Barrell The race to govern the Western Cape is still wide open and it is not certain who will form a coalition if, as expected, no party wins an absolute majority in the provincial legislature. While the Democratic Party, with about 12% support, appears confident the New National Party would link up with […]
Corruption and crime have dominated the election debates up to now. But there are other critical issues that are germane to how South Africans will vote on June 2. These are just three. Education The African National Congress has always been strong on education policy. It brought to office an ambitious vision for a radically […]
Charlene Smith The government is delaying a number of studies into rape, HIV and the use of anti- retroviral drugs with the obstinate stance that researchers must have a control group of rape survivors who do not receive medication. One proposed Johannesburg-based study with a $100-million grant from pharmaceutical companies would see free anti-retroviral treatment […]
ABOUT 5000 United Democratic Movement supporters will march to the offices of African National Congress Northern Province premier Ngoako Ramatlhodi, on Saturday, to demand the release of a controversial report on traditional chiefs. Provincial UDM leader Reverend Kingsley Masemola accused the premier on Thursday of wanting to withhold the report until after the June 2 […]
fingers Aaron Nicodemus Although the law that allows police to shoot unarmed suspects was changed six months ago, its implementation has been delayed by a lack of commitment by the South African Police Service (SAPS) to train its officers. Section 49 (2) of the Criminal Procedure Act sets down the circumstances under which a police […]
LIFE assurer Old Mutual said on Thursday that its subsidiary bank, Nedcor Ltd, has earned better-than-expected interest income and margins, but these have been partially offset by bad debt. Old Mutual, which owns a 53,5% controlling interest in the bank, said Nedcor continues to place a considerable focus on expense control in seeking to achieve […]
MORE than 200 students at a teachers’ college in Mpumalanga have won a battle for better food after boycotting the campus caterers for two days. Rector of Mgwenya College of Education, Ian Steenkamp said on Thursday that the 240 students would now get good meals. Students had complained that vegetarians, for example, were fed only […]
Edward Cottle The African National Congress’s election manifesto appears to be an impressive document. It promises “five years of accelerated change” on the basis of the Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP). What is completely absent from the document is its growth, employment and redistribution strategy (Gear). Does it mean that Gear has been abandoned? The […]
Alex Sudheim Poetry is one of the great human paradoxes. Consumed as we are by infinite labyrinths of emotion and thought, we have at our disposal but one rudimentary tool for the expression of our ephemeral selves: that famously deficient thing called language. As Samuel Beckett once pointed out: “Every word is an unnecessary stain […]
Phillip vanNiekerk:FROM THE EDITOR’S DESK The truism that a week can be a long time in politics has been brought home to me. At the end of last month I devoted this column to what I had thought to be an unanswerable case against newspapers coming out in support of political parties – a practice […]
ANNUAL passenger car sales worldwide will barely top 32-million in 2000, 3,3-million vehicles fewer than last year’s turnover, reducing sales to levels last seen in the 1980s, Britain’s Economist Intelligence Unit said on Thursday. “Overall world car sales will not exceed their 1997 peak volumes again until 2003,” the EIU said in an abstract from […]