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 Bell bottoms, stiff cupped bikinis, sideburns, big medallions and some very outdated morality has crept into the fuzz […]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 […]
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 […]
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, […]
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 […]
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 […]
Ann Eveleth Land reform has quietly undergone a major policy shift as the government has entered the land market in a bid to reshape the way land reform works. Minister of Agriculture and Land Affairs Derek Hanekom told the Mail & Guardian in an interview this week that the government had already begun purchasing farms […]
Are Africanism and nation-building mutually exclusive, or can Mbeki harness them in a team, asks Stanley Uys? While President Nelson Mandela has concerned himself with ceremonial matters, winning foreign friends and influencing people, Deputy President Thabo Mbeki has been running South Africa: chairing the Cabinet, managing day-to-day affairs, shaping policies, and moving on to the […]
Mathews Phosa’s political career may be at an end, but he won’t go down without a fight. Wally Mbhele and Makhosini Nkosi report As the African National Congress late this week announced its far-reaching findings on the political divisions behind the collapse of provincial structures in Mpumalanga, outgoing Premier Mathews Phosa came out blazing and […]
Andy Capostagno Rugby Three rounds to go and the Super 12 semi- finalists remain as elusive as a Waisale Serevi side-step. There are those who will argue that the Highlanders and the Stormers are certainties for the last four, but that’s all it is; an argument. The remaining fixtures for all the contenders are full […]
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 […]
Despite many obstacles, there are great opportunities for black economic empowerment in the ITand telecommunications sector, reports Donna Block The future of black economic empowerment in South Africa is wired. Not only do the information, communication and technology sectors offer opportunities for wealth creation in the form of apparently gravity- defying shares, but these industries […]
THE South African Rugby Football Union is negotiating with Springbok coach Nick Mallett to extend his contract when it expires after the Rugby World Cup. Mallett, the most successful South African national coach ever, who took the Boks to 17 consecutive wins, will try to defend the championship in Wales in October and November. Sarfu […]
Theatre:Alex Dodd What’s the point in writing a play about racial prejudice in contemporary South Africa, about the failings of the rainbow nation project and then presenting it to an almost completely white audience? A bit like attempting to tango solo. This is what must have been stumping ad man John Hunt when he first […]
administer Absa Fund Managers Absa Aggressive Fund of Funds Absa Balanced Fund Absa Financial & Industrial Index Fund Absa General Fund Absa Growth Fund of Funds Absa Income Fund Absa International Fund Absa Money Market Fund Absa Specialist Growth Fund African Harvest Management Co African Harvest Rainmaker Fund African Harvest Renaissance Fund Allan Gray Unit […]
THURSDAY, 11.45AM: ANDRE SNYMAN will return to the Northern Bulls squad for Saturday’s Super-12 encounter with the Coastal Sharks at Loftus Versfeld in Pretoria. Snyman missed the Bulls’ last match, against Queensland Reds, due to the death of his father. He returns to the team at centre in place of Conrad Breytenbach. The other change […]
Friday night :Andrew Kay My Friday night was so good it actually started the night before. Coming at the tail end of a cathartic and sleep-deprived three- day bender, my Friday night was perhaps a little tame in comparison with the previous two nights. If this column had been titled Wednesday to Friday night, you […]
The Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration is functioning very well, writes Luvuyo Kakaza It’s Friday morning and the modest headquarters of the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA) in downtown Johannesburg are buzzing with activity. It is in this commission’s noisy corridors that reluctant management teams and angry workers start to lobby before […]
Howard Barrell:OVER A BARREL By the time you make your squiggles on a ballot paper on June 2, you will have read all the parties’ manifestos, analysed the outcomes they propose and the plausibility of the methods they suggest, sifted their merits out further in intelligent debate, cogitated and reflected still further, and then, with […]
Shaun Harris Neil Thomas, a youngish manager with a large food company in Durban, survived last year’s crack in the stock market fairly well. His collection of unit trust investments actually gained a few percentage points growth over the calendar year – not bad seen against the Johannesburg Stock Exchange’s (JSE) overall decline. Now Thomas […]
Marianne Merten General Constand Viljoen hit the campaign trail in the Western Cape this week without bodyguards, motor cavalcades, delays or the usual politician’s razzmatazz. Asked about his punctuality, so unlike many other politicians, he confessed jokingly: “I’m no politician.” Although there were no babies to be hugged or toddlers to be kissed, he smiled […]
abusive police Ted Leggett There has been much speculation about why South African Police Service (SAPS) officers would abuse shackled and wounded citizens in front of BBC cameras, in footage they must have known would be broadcast all over the world. But criminal investigators often come across similar cases, where the perpetrators apparently go out […]
KAIZER Chiefs’ midfielder Lifa Gqosha is recovering in Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital after police shot him on Tuesday night while he was allegedly trying to flee. Gqosha had been arrested for possesion of a suspected stolen vehicle and assaulting a police officer. The player’s family plan to lay charges against the police for assault. Gqosha’s […]
If reverb makes it hard for you to figure out what the words to Heartbreak Hotel are, help is just a click away. All the words to Elvis’s songs are available at , which includes a photo gallery of The King, from school photographs to the lanky youth of early publicity shots to the bloated […]
THURSDAY, 11.30AM: MOROKA Swallows coach Walter Rautmann on Wednesday joined a growing list of people claiming Birds players have been accepting bribes to throw certain matches, and which may have resulted in Swallows losing a crucial league match. Rautmann said there could be substance to claims that former Swallows directors bribed key players to deliberately […]
Andrew Muchineripi in Copenhagen Top-class international football is chess on grass, a battle of brains as much as brawn with a credo that stresses the importance of making no mistakes while forcing your opponent into them. South Africa set out this week to end a 13- match winless streak outside Africa that has seen some […]
Until recently, the common fantasy of what sex would be like in the future borrowed from the spoof sci-fi movies of the 1960s. It would be solitary, robotic, it would probably involve a booth – Woody Allen’s orgasmatron springs to mind. These days, now we are closer to the future, technology’s impact on sex conjures […]