PRESIDENT Nelson Mandela on Friday received two honorary doctorates from the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow. Mandela, who arrived in Moscow on Wednesday for a three-day state visit, told members of the academy that he will always cherish his association with the great intellectuals. “I would interpret your action also as a tribute to […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Friday 7.30pm. Health Minister Dr Nkosazana Zuma said on Friday that Aids should be a notifiable disease in South Africa, responding to criticism by Aids activist groups about proposed policies they feel will endanger the privacy of Aids sufferers. She also said attempts should be made to integrate the HIV/Aids “message” […]
ANGOLA struck twice within five minutes during the closing stages to grab a 2-1 victory over Malawi in a Castle Cup Southern Africa championship match in Blantyre on Sunday. Antonio Mendonca, a 16-year-old debutant, equalised after 76 minutes with a close-range shot and Malawi captain Patrick Mabedi turned a Paulo Tomas cross into his own […]
AFRICAN club championship first-leg fixtures this weekend, April 30 to May 2. The second leg will be May 14-16. Champions League First round: Kaloum, Guinea v Shooting Stars, Nigeria; Second round: Al-Ahly, Egypt v Rayon Sport, Rwanda; Raja Casablanca, Morocco v Djoliba, Mali; ASEC, Cote d’Ivoire, holders v Al-Harrach, Algeria; Hearts of Oak, Ghana v […]
OPENING batsman Andrew Hudson has announced his retirement from international cricket after 35 tests for South Africa. Hudson, 34, was the first South African to score a century on a test debut when he made 163 against the West Indies in Barbados in 1992, South Africa’s first test after 22 years in isolation. Hudson scored […]
THE details for the 1999 Castle Cup Southern Africa championship: First round: Lesotho 1 Namibia 0; Botswana 1 South Africa 2; Malawi 1 Angola 2; Swaziland v Mozambique, playing May 9; Zambia, holders, Zimbabwe byes. Losers play-offs (lowest FIFA ranked teams at home): May 22-23, May 29-30. Quarter-finals (highest FIFA ranked teams seeded. Draw for […]
IN BRIEF McMILLAN, DONALD FOR DEATH MATCH SOUTH Africa’s Brian McMillan and Allan Donald have been chosen for an MCC team which will play the Rest of the World in a memorial match for Diana, Princess of Wales, at Lord’s on July 18. MCC Team: Mike Atherton (England), Amir Sohail (Pakistan), Mohammed Azharuddin (India), Saurav […]
NAMIBIA is to host the Oceanic Tug of War Championships in July in Swakopmund, it was announced on Monday. This was one of the decisions taken by a historic Tug of War International Federation (TWIF) congress that was held on African soil for the first time the coastal town of Swakopmund the weekend. Between 500-700 […]
THE British Lions will visit Australia in 2001 after the tour is approved by the International Rugby Board’s (IRB) Executive Council. The IRB had originally wanted the Lions to play two tests in both New Zealand and Australia but decided instead to stage three tests in Australia only, with a separate tour of New Zealand […]
Tony Twine The relaxation of foreign exchange controls on South Africans has opened a world of opportunity previously forbidden. Unhappily, it has also unleashed a world of mystery on relatively innocent South Africans, many of whom had only had the domestic capital markets as their benchmark for investment performance. Wealthy South Africans, and those who […]
Mayday – the celebration of the eight-hour working day – was first celebrated in South Africa in 1904, by white workers. By the 1980s, it had become a major moment for black trade unionists, whose rallies included groundbreaking poetry and plays. These days, much of the Mayday fervour has been lost. And many South Africans, […]
Cameron Duodu:LETTER FROM THE NORTH `This is not my house!” the little boy shrieked. By one of those magical interconnections that our brains are capable of, I immediately realised what had happened. My five-year-old kid had been collected by someone else from his school, and another kid brought to mine. A thousand scenarios, each riddled […]
The David Gleason Column How should anyone price rough diamonds? This is part of the issue at the heart of the recently erupted row between the government diamond valuer and De Beers. Here are the real problems. De Beers mines diamonds in this country and sells them, almost entirely, abroad through its Central Selling Organisation […]
Shaun Harris The great regulation debate over unit trusts and similar investment products has been raised to a new level with the publication of the Collective Investment Schemes Bill, jointly drawn up by the Association of Unit Trusts (AUT) and the Financial Services Board (FSB). Like all proposed changes aimed at an established industry – […]
Thokozani Mtshali The announcement this week by the Gauteng Ministry of Transport and the South African Taxi Council of agreed measures to regulate the troubled industry brings hope for commuters caught in the crossfire of warring taxi factions. The announcement comes after years of hard work by the national Ministry of Transport in a quest […]
THURSDAY, 2.00PM: BOND traders are gearing to confront the Reserve Bank over inefficient handling of the its bond auction, after the Bank this week released the results of the auction over an hour-and-a-half late. Investors and traders alike were thrown off balance when the Bank, held back by a computer problem, failed to release the […]
Howard Barrell The African National Congress has gained significant voter support in recent months, edging it closer to a two-thirds majority in elections in five weeks’ time. The ANC also looks set to control provincial legislatures or governments in eight of South Africa’s nine provinces – in all but the Western Cape. These are the […]
`depression’ Marianne Merten The current spotlight on police brutality has apparently made little difference to the fate of two members of the Cape Peninsula dog unit. Accused of shooting dead two car-theft suspects and endangering the lives of their colleagues during the incident, they have avoided the suspension recommended by the police watchdog, the Independent […]
Review of the week Alex Dodd Upon entering the blocky white space of the Laboratory (how apt) our ears are filled with the sound of a monotone female voice detailing the workings of the human chakra system. However, unlike the soothing tones of new age healers Caroline Myss or Louise Hayes, this voice, devoid of […]
A NEW epidemic of the Ebola virus has erupted in the east of the Democractic Republic of Congo (DRC), claiming 46 lives, Health Minister Mashako Mamba said on Friday. The epidemic is centered in an area in the rebel-controlled northeast of the country, near Sudan and Uganda, Mamba said over state radio, citing information provided […]
Loose cannon Robert Kirby A few months ago I arrived at ACSA’s Johannesburg International Punishment Camp. We were disembarked from our beautifully maintained 200-year-old Airbus and mercilessly driven up through one of those jetty things into a long dimly lit corridor. Dreadful torture music screamed out of the walls at us. Like a scene from […]
South Africa have been installed as favourites to win the World Cup, but the squad is determined not to let this affect their performances. Neil Manthorp reports The belief that the World Cup can be won is tangible, especially after the 15-man squad get-together in Swellendam that was disguised as a “fun, bonding” weekend but […]
Matthew Krouse Down the tube If God is directing television broadcast programming, then He’s trying to tell us something about the past. Why else would the hipsters and swingsters of the Sixties and Seventies keep cropping up? Bell bottoms, stiff cupped bikinis, sideburns, big medallions and some very outdated morality has crept into the fuzz […]
Ivor Powell With an international conference aimed at enforcing a worldwide anti-personnel landmines ban kicking off in Maputo on Monday, questions will have to be asked about how effectively the problem has been addressed to date. In Mozambique, according to United States Department of State statistics, only 28km of usable land had been cleared of […]
Donna Block and Mungo Soggot South Africa’s premier empowerment group, New Africa Investments Limited (Nail), is expected to a undergo a top-level boardroom shake-up in the wake of the debacle surrounding an attempt by directors to award themselves a R136-million share option bonus. Market sources said this week that the company’s two founding directors, Nthato […]
Shaun de Waal SOUTH AFRICA: A GUIDE TO RECENT ARCHITECTURE by Christina Muwanga (Ellipsis) This exceptionally cute little book (it is a mere 10cm square, though 350 pages thick) is an excellent pocket guide to South African architecture of the last decade or so. It doesn’t go back into our history, so it lacks some […]
Melvyn Bragg:A SECOND LOOK I owe Christianity a debt, and so, I believe, does the world we have lived in for the past 2 000 years. Much of what is best in that duo-millennial span has been due to the man who inspired the faith which took his name. But Christianity also owes me and […]
Director Ken Kaplan has made a zombie movie that mixes red blood and black humour. Andrew Worsdale, acting like a zombie, gets the inside story Ten years ago writer/director Ken Kaplan, at age 24, was in the formative stages of pre-production and major development on a movie called Fanus – Pure Blood. It was the […]
The cartel’s pricing system and the state valuator’s job are at stake as De Beers and the government square up, reports Mungo Soggot The row between the government and De Beers escalated this week as diamond industry players plotted to oust the state diamond valuator while the government prepared to challenge the way the diamond […]
Howard Barrell The Sea Point beachfront, Cape Town, 2pm, 30 degrees. A smallish figure in a baggy suit, cellphone to ear, mouth moving, strides forth along the pavement in full throttle. It’s Tony Leon, Democratic Party leader and political combatant extraordinaire. Scurrying alongside him, furiously scribbling notes, cellphone to her ear, mouth moving, is Sid, […]
Richard O Boyer travelled extensively with the great bandleader and his orchestra in the early Forties. Here he captures the spirit of the time It was on a day coach, rolling through the Ohio and Pennsylvania night that Duke Ellington wrote most of New World A-Coming, a symphonic work which had its premiere at Carnegie […]
John Matshikiza:WITH THE LID OFF `What between the duties expected of one during one’s lifetime,” says Oscar Wilde’s Lady Bracknell in The Importance of Being Earnest, “and the duties expected from one on one’s death, land has ceased to be either a profit or a pleasure. It gives one position and prevents one from keeping […]