Michael Finch Athletics If Elana Meyer was looking for a sympathetic ear after her disappointing London Marathon performance last Sunday, she’d better not look to Gwen Griffiths. The newly crowned South African marathon champion was far from impressed by the performance of Meyer and believes the star needs a major rethink of her strategies. Meyer, […]
Sarah Ryle At last an economics professor has done something useful. He has worked out that punters who chose the six least popular numbers from the British National Lottery’s list of 49 stand to make an average weekly return of 11% on their stakes. The magic numbers – 36, 41, 46, 47, 48 and 49 […]
Lyn Gardner Last month a little-known theatre group called Frantic Assembly played Singapore’s Zouk Club, described by dance guru Judge Jules as “the best club on the planet”. When they last played London, in the informal surroundings of the BAC theatre, the crowd looked like the overspill from one of the capital’s trendier nightclubs. That […]
ECOMOG, the Nigerian-led intervention force fighting rebels in Sierra Leone, on Thursday began to clear a stretch of highway linking the Freetown peninsula to the eastern interior. With the recapture last Friday of Songo, a town 45km east of the capital, Ecomog troops have begun moving along the volatile road toward Masiaka, where rebels of […]
The father of African film, Ousmane Sembene, who is in South Africa developing a new movie about the effects of colonialism on Africa, spoke to Bafana Khumalo Many an African liberation fighter has made the journey to the land of the Russians, to learn the art of shooting. So has Ousmane Sembene, the Senegalese novelist […]
Howard Barrell THE LIFE AND TIMES OF THABO MBEKI by Adrian Hadland and Jovial Rantao (Zebra) Our political institutions in South Africa are immature and largely untested. Our system of proportional representation places parliamentary seats more within the gift of party bosses than of bodies of voters. And internal African National Congress processes allow for […]
THE African Connection Rally, in which Post and Telecommunications Minister Jay Naidoo participated, ended on Wednesday at Cape Agulhas — the southern tip of the continent — after a 22-day drive through Africa. It was met by members of the Cape Agulhas and surrounding communities, as well as dignitaries from around South Africa. The rally […]
THURSDAY, 5.00PM: THE Zimbabwean government has ordered its auditors to investigate an “indigenous” private bank owned by controversial affirmative action campaigner Roger Boka, the Finance Ministry announced on Thursday. The urgent investigation comes after black-run United Merchant Bank closed its doors on Friday, sparking rumours that the bank is heading for a collapse due to […]
THE United Democratic Movement won its first by-election on Wednesday. The UDM’s Frederick Konstabel beat the African National Congress’s candidate by 258 votes to 148 in a by-election in Zoar in the Western Cape, UDM spokesman Dr Johna Steenkamp said on Thursday. The by-election was the third contested by the UDM. The New National Party […]
Ann Eveleth South Africa’s “other half” – the rural poor – will descend on the birthplace of the African National Congress this weekend to thrash out a new charter demanding their fair share of the economic pie. Delegates from rural communities across the country will meet at the national Rural Convention in Bloemfontein to draft […]
Casinos aim to capture 8% of the total disposable income of gamblers. David le Page explains how they work out the odds Out at the unsetting Sundome Casino on a Monday night, there’s no shortage of willing cash-cow customers hanging round the tables and lining up at the slots like Pavlovian dogs waiting for bells, […]
Astronomers are excited about the discovery of the first multiple-planet solar system outside our own, writes Aaron Nicodemus Announcement of a discovery of a multiple-planet system reminiscent of our own solar system has created excitement throughout the world, offering the first suggestion that planetary systems like our own are abundant. The three planets, which rotate […]
Playing his own song in a huge American stadium is one of the highlights of Big Voice Jack life – and there’s a documentary film to prove it, writes Brendan Cooper Eighty thousand people can make a lot of noise, and when Dave Matthews leans in to his mic and says to the crowd, “Give […]
On April 27, South Africa celebrates Freedom Day. Ferial Haffajee asked veteran South Africans how life has changed since 1994 For lawyer and local legal legend George Bizos, freedom comes contained in a little beige book. His dog-eared copy of the Constitution is a well-thumbed and living document. As the head of the constitutional unit […]
Early in the millennium, boxing’s premier title will return to Africa, writes Gavin Evans Think of the world heavyweight champion, and it’s big Americans who come to mind. From Jack Johnson to Evander Holyfield, all the great ones have been drawn from the south and east flanks of the United States. In fact, for only […]
Andrew Kay The 25-year-old Johannesburg Youth Orchestra (JYO), which had its annual subsidy cut without warning last year, has formed the Orchestra Company to raise funds through the private sector for the various youth orchestras affiliated to it. Judging by their full concert schedule, and the enthusiastic reception they receive at recitals, the strategies seem […]
Niki Barker The already cash-strapped KwaZulu-Natal Nature Conservation Service faces further financial stress, with the disclosure this week that a considerable sum of money deposited with the embattled New Republic Bank (NRB) in Durban has been frozen as a result of NRB being placed under receivership. It is claimed that the conservation service deposited R48- […]
Recommended l Renault Espace: Huge boot space, which can be enlarged by tipping the back seats down l London taxi:Available second-hand in the UK, they are roomy and comfortable enough for any manoeuvres l White van: Flagship of the lumpen proletariat, this is the nearest you can get to a motel room on wheels Don’t […]
In 1990, the world’s economic centre of gravity was Tokyo. Share and property prices were in the stratosphere, Japanese banking, electronics, automotive and steel companies were all-victorious, and the economy seemed armour-plated. Yet the true miracle was not Japan’s economy but the delusion on which it was based – a gigantic asset-price bubble whose explosion […]
Neil Manthorp Cricket He might not inspire gasps of fear from the cricket terraces of Australia, but then fans have always been useless at picking coaches. Players yes, but not coaches. But whatever the fans may say, Graham Ford is absolutely the right man for the South African job – even if he doesn’t carry […]
Respected journalist Max du Preez was axed this week by the SABC. This is his version of the events of the past 10 days “He who is scared of a hyena’s howling, is he who has smeared himself with fat” – old Shona proverb. Forgive me, I have just discovered a book on Shona proverbial […]
Wally Mbhele and Makhosini Nkosi There was stunned silence at an African National Congress national working committee meeting this week when Deputy President Thabo Mbeki announced his decision to axe both the Gauteng and Mpumalanga premiers. Gauteng Premier Mathole Motshekga was summoned to Mbeki’s Johannesburg office this week where he was told of his fate. […]
SOUTH Africans living in London are to mount a placard protest outside the South African High Commission in London on Saturday in support of a growing campaign to allow expats to both register and vote abroad. The New National Party has rejected a scheme introduced by the Independent Electoral Commission last month in terms of […]
Phillip van Niekerk:FROM THE EDITOR’S DESK I received a phone call on Tuesday night from journalist Carlos Cordosa in Maputo. “How would you like to help stop the Yugoslavian war?” he raved at me. The suggestion: join an international call for the pope to take up residence in Belgrade. At first I thought he was […]
Donna Block and Mungo Soggot One of South Africa’s top black businessmen, Dikgang Moseneke, this week conceded that New Africa Investments Limited (Nail) had made an error of judgment over the handling of its controversial R136-million share option windfall for him and three other top executives. Moseneke, MD of South Africa’s flagship black empowerment group, […]
Jack Schofield Three of the world’s best-known companies – Microsoft, America OnLine (AOL) and Yahoo! – are locked in a billion-dollar battle to give you something for nothing: a “portal”, or gateway to the Internet, where Web wanderers can start when they go online. Portals attract millions of users, and consequently lots of advertising. With […]
Friday night :Brenda Atkinson Friday nights, as all Johannesburg’s near- jaded know, are no simple affair. Outbursts of spontaneous venue-crawling are likely to go unrewarded. Planning is everything. In the spirit of urban social conspiracy – theorists everywhere, my partner and I prepared well in advance. Playing 007 to my 003, on Tuesday he sent […]
ENGLISH is likely to be the sole language of record soon in South African courts. Business Day reports that the Judicial Service Commission is set to issue a directive to high courts that English be the language of record, but that the courts “encourage people to use any one of the 11 official languages”. The […]
Review of the week Brenda Atkinson Much as Sigmund Freud’s theoretical and linguistic legacy to the Western world has slipped beneath the surface of a million conscious minds, Leonardo da Vinci’s mind- boggling contributions to the scientific and cultural workings of a millennial first world find us largely ignorant of their import. The long-awaited and […]
Loose cannon:Robert Kirby You know politics is getting eminently stupid when Pik Botha threatens to join the ANC. Foreign minister to foreign object in one easy step. What’s more, it’s entirely the wrong step. What Pik should really be doing is thinking about reviving that trusty old gang of crypto-fascists he used to help manage. […]
FEDERAL Alliance leader Louis Luyt played on growing xenophobia in the Northern Province on Thursday by blaming the government for allowing foreigners to deprive South Africans of jobs. Addressing crowds of enthusiastic supporters in the provincial capital of Pietersburg on Wednesday and Thursday, Luyt added that the large numbers of illegal immigrants in South Africa […]
DETAINED journalist Maha Hassan Ali was released by security officials in Khartoum Wednesday afternoon on a personal bail by the chairman of the Sudanese Journalists Union, Najeeb Adam. Adam said he and a delegation of the union had approached “a ranking security official” and secured her release. Maha and two male journalists were arrested early […]