For the past few years Natal’s Sharks have been the dominant South African Super 12 team, but this season it is the Stormers who are showing the form to reach the final stages, writes Andy Capostagno If you listen you can hear it, the shuffling of booted feet. And if you happen to see out […]
Van Morrison’s new CD, his umpteenth release but his first for Virgin (via Point Blank), is confidently called Back on Top. Over-confidently, in fact – at least not as far as a long-time Van fan is concerned. It’s not that Back on Top is bad, it’s just that so much of it sounds like so […]
Ivor Powell Some time last year those in the inner circles of the African National Congress and the party’s official spin doctors took to referring to Deputy President Thabo Mbeki, in a seemingly hubristic way, as “the president”. It was only when you challenged them, insisting that the president’s name was Nelson Mandela and that […]
Prominent journalists, friends and relatives who knew veteran photojournalist and TV newsman John Rubython crammed into Cape Town’s St George’s cathedral on Thursday to pay their last respects. Rubython (58) was stabbed to death in his Woodstock home early on Monday morning by a young burglar. Rubython’s partner, Melanie Junker, and their three-month-old baby, Marie-Hlen, […]
I was extremely disturbed to read in the Daily Mail & Guardian the other day that the South African government had refused political asylum to Catherine Kaunda, daughter of former president Kenneth Kaunda. I do not know the full particulars of the case. Whatever the reason, it is the right of a sovereign government to […]
LESOTHO’S King Letsie III (36) is engaged to be married, Lesotho Prime Minister Pakalitha Mosisili told the country’s parliament on Thursday. A date for his state wedding to Karabo Motsoening, a science student at the University of Lesotho, has yet to be announced.
Joanna Walters An unseemly race has begun: a stampede to resume trade with Libya, a political pariah that just happens to be swimming in oil. It all depends on whether the trial of the Lockerbie suspects in the Netherlands throws up anything about government involvement in the deed- and in a host of other old […]
RIOT police in Zimbabwe used tear gas on Wednesday to stop protesting students marching into the centre of Harare to press home demands for better loans and shorter vactions. Police fired tear gas at thousands of students who were trying to leave the Univeristy of Zimbabwe campus — situated in one of Harare’s upmarket suburbs […]
axed Wally Mbhele The political future of Mpumalanga Premier Mathews Phosa, hanging on a knife-edge pending the outcome of an ANC investigation into political infighting in his province, was given a dramatic boost last weekend. In what observers describe as a solid vote of confidence in Phosa’s leadership, all his principal political rivals in the […]
THE United Nations will facilitate upcoming talks in Togo between Sierra Leone rebel leader Foday Sankoh, facing execution for treason, and his field commanders, for peace in Sierra Leone, its envoy announced. UN Special Representative to Sierra Leone Francis Okello met President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah late Thursday and said that the United Nations will also […]
ZAMBIA and Angola have finally agreed to meet to discuss persistent allegations that some top Zambian government officials have helped Angola’s Unita rebels rearm, president Frederick Chiluba announced on Wednesday. He said the Angolan authorities have provided the Zambian government with details of the accusations which Zambia responded to “detail by detail”. He did not […]
SIEMENS (SA) announced on Thursday that it has been awarded a $15-million GSM supply contract by Zamcell, the third cellular network to operate in Zambia. Zamcell was launched in December 1998. In terms of the turnkey contract, Siemens provided the equipment for the network, which was installed in time for the first commercial trials which […]
this city Marianne Merten The police have spent a vast amount of the money allocated to Operation Good Hope, aimed at breaking the cycle of violence in the Cape Peninsula, on transport and providing bodyguards to protect detectives assigned to it. Financial statements in the possession of the Mail & Guardian show just more than […]
Ian Clayton Minister of Provincial Affairs and Constitutional Development Valli Moosa announced this week that the government’s allocation to local authorities would be R2,3-billion during the current financial year, an increase from the R2,1-billion allocated in the last financial year. Moosa added that local authorities with greater need would “gradually” receive more direct government aid […]
Powerful politicians have embarked on a two-pronged strategy to influence the ANC’s selection of the Gauteng premier candidate, writes Wally Mbhele As Gauteng Premier Mathole Motshekga’s tight grip on his post begins to falter, it appears that his political opponents are winning a battle to remove him from the most powerful provincial office in the […]
RESPECTED journalist Max du Preez, the producer of the popular Special Assignment investigative programme, was fired by the SABC on Thursday. Du Preez was given his marching orders by editor-in-chief Phil Molefe on Thursday afternoon. “They said I am arrogant and don’t show respect,” Du Preez told Beeld . Last Saturday the programme, which will […]
Last year there was more hype around Josiah Thugwane’s participation in the London Marathon than about the millennium bug. This year, the Olympic champion is downplaying his chances after inadequate preparation, leaving Elana Meyer to carry the burden of South African hopes at one of the world’s top three big city marathons. The 32-year-old Meyer […]
Andrew Muchineripi Soccer The team and reserves walked on to the pitch holding hands Brazil-style, formed a circle, bowed heads and prayed, then kicked footballs into the sparse George Goch Stadium crowd. On the warm, partially cloudy weekend afternoon the future of Moroka Swallows Football Club was at stake when they tackled Dynamos from the […]
Matthew Krouse Down the tube Television viewers will get a glimpse of last Saturday’s Avanti Awards when they air on SABC2 on Tuesday April 20 at 9.30pm. The Avantis, held under the auspices of the National Television and Video Association, are now the only television awards in the country. This year, the ceremony was very […]
A number of developments this week have offered yet another reminder of how fragile is our reliance on judges to hold society together. First of all we have had the Heath debacle. The “Caped Crusader” was humiliated twice over the past week. We had Trevor Manuel playing cat and mouse with him, making fun of […]
Marianne Merten Debates around the size and name of the new local government structure in Cape Town are expected to become heated. The mother city plans to be a “unicity” by the end of 2000. Already the number of councils in the Cape Town metropolitan area has been rationalised from 69 racially segregated bodies to […]
THURSDAY, 11.45AM: THE Northern Bulls have made six changes to the side that will clash with the Auckland Blues in a Super-12 match at Pukekohe on Friday. Three of the changes are forced, with Ian Macdonald suspended after raking an opponent last week, Franco Smith nursing an injury, and centre Andre Snyman back in South […]
There’s more to investment clubs than starting a stokvel. Alex Brown explains how to get your savings on the stock exchange `Give me an acorn and the passage of time and I’ll give you an oak tree.” So it is with money – but the problem is that few of us are Zen enough to […]
David Gough in Kampala The Ugandan Ministry of Health is initiating a voluntary door-to-door HIV screening programme in an effort to check the Aids epidemic that has claimed the lives of 700 000 people in the country. After a successful pilot scheme, the Ugandan Aids Commission plans to take the testing nationwide by the end […]
A ZAMBIAN magistrate on Friday charged with espoinage the 12 Postjournalists arrested last month. The journalists from the Post newspaper, who include the managing director and editor, Fred M’membe, were separately arrested and charged with espionage, which carries a minimum jail term of twenty years, after their paper carried a story comparing Zambia’s military capabilities […]
Sunday night in front of the box fed up with endless images of bombs, refugees and Nato briefings I did a little channel surfing and came across a lovely little film, called A Month By the Lake, starring Vanessa Redgrave. She plays a spinster looking for romance during an Italian holiday just before World War […]
Loose cannon:Robert Kirby Charlene Smith’s was an extraordinarily brave description last week, of the twin ordeals she underwent – at the brutal hands of a rapist and then at the equally brutal hands of those to whom she turned for help. With the exception of one compassionate and determined policeman, the people who should have […]
Emeka Nwandiko What do you wish for on your birthday if you are a king? Loyalty from your subjects, an end to years of industrial unrest, constitutional reform, more foreign investment to keep your kingdom, the size of Gauteng, afloat? The list goes on for King Mswati III of Swaziland, who will celebrate his 31st […]
Andrew Worsdale Movies of the week Hate has always been a powerful driving force for movie narratives; whether it’s the supposedly morally correct vigilante hatred of Dirty Harry’s “Feeling lucky Punk?”, Ralph Fiennes diabolically loathsome Krakow Nazi Commandant, Amon Goeth, teetering on the brink of racial madness in Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List, or Malcolm McDowell’s […]
THE Stormers have made two changes to their line-up for Saturday’s clash against Super 12 champions, the Canterbury Crusaders, at Newlands. John Daniels comes in on the wing and Anton Leonard at flank for the injured Breyton Paulse and Robbie Brink. Paulse has a fractured finger and is expected to play against the Auckland Blues […]
There are several ways to commit suicide. One is just to do it, another is to threaten it repeatedly, while a third is to mount half-hearted attempts at it. If you do the latter two often enough, people soon discount you in anticipation of your final departure. Zimbabwe seems to be alternating between the latter […]
M&Greporters The celebration of World Book Day on April 23 started in Spain and has spread around the world, receiving official recognition by Unesco. Last year, 38 countries celebrated books and reading on that day. April 23 is William Shakespeare’s birthday; in the wake of the success of the Oscar-winning film Shakespeare in Love, perhaps […]