Adam Mars-Jones SINGLE & SINGLE by John le Carr (Hodder &Stoughton) There have been a dozen books since The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, and still John le Carr seems like a butterfly escaped from the chrysalis of the genre novel but afraid to spread his wings, more than half regretting the old […]
Fears are growing that Angola’s civil war could spill over its borders following reports that Zambia is aiding Unita. Ivor Powell reports New evidence has come to light implicating President Frederick Chiluba’s Zambian government in aiding Jonas Savimbi’s rebel Unita movement in neighbouring Angola. Indications have also surfaced of Ugandan troops seconded in support of […]
Grim new demographic details show that life for most South Africans is not getting better, and may well be getting worse. With an estimated 4,7-million people unemployed and looking for work, and only 5,1-million in formal employment, it is hardly surprising that life remains tough for ordinary people in the democratic South Africa. But it […]
Andy Colquhoun Rugby Saturday’s Super 12 collision between the Sharks and the Stormers at Newlands probably has more sub-plots than you’d find in a property developer’s fantasy for cluster homes on Table Mountain. At face value, the game is simply about the maximum of five log points to give the winner a leg-up towards the […]
David Davies Golf Westwood and Woods, two young tigers whose names tended to be on the top of leaderboards around the world last year, are not quite fulfilling their billing this year. It has been a while since either Lee Westwood or Tiger Woods has growled at anybody. In fact, all the roaring lately has […]
PRESIDENT Nelson Mandela arrived in Bahrain on Thursday on the second leg of a mini-tour of the Gulf. Mandela is due to present his condolences to the Gulf island state’s new emir, Sheikh Hamad ibn Issa al-Khalifa, who succeeded to power last month following the death of his father. Mandela is accompanied by Foreign Minister […]
Matthew Krouse Down the tube There are about three instances of home- brewed humour on television these days, most of them old hat. Suburban Bliss, Khululeka and Vetkoekpaleis are the resident local acts, in programming that includes well over 20 imported sitcoms. While comedies like Frasier and Seinfeld have become national treasures, the dearth of […]
So imagine waking up to discover on breakfast television that Jay Naidoo is off on a rally across the African continent with none other than Bobby Brown. Shucks, does this mean that doe-eyed Whitney Houston will be popping up to croon loving words of encouragement to her man at every pit stop between Tunis and […]
HIGH courts have started the process of resentencing some of the 350 prisoners on death row, Justice Minister Dullah Omar’s office said on Thursday. In terms of the 1997 Criminal Law Amendment Act, death row prisoners who have exhausted all avenues of appeal and review must return to the courts where they were originally sentenced […]
Kevin Mitchell Boxing Brendan Ingle says Naseem Hamed has been abandoned by his friends and will be finished as a top-flight fighter within two years. Given the turbulent nature of the business, it is not surprising that boxing generates such bitterness between old associates when they discover that their long-held trust is the sham they […]
UGANDA’s central bank on Thursday took over the running of the troubled Uganda Commercial Bank to protect the interests of depositors and to remove from its management a Malaysian firm accused of illegal lending. The move follows a controversial attempt to privatise UCB, previously a state corporation, during which the Malaysian firm Westmont Land (Asia) […]
MEMBERS of Swaziland’s parliament have called for Cosatu’s deputy general secretary, Zwelinzima Vavi, to be deported after he described Swaziland’s leadership as barbaric and said King Mswati had forced his people to do “compulsory labour”. The call, led by MP Marwick Khumalo, was made on Thursday afternoon. Khumalo said Vavi’s statements, made during an interview […]
Total originality, explosive energy and plenty of brain power have all played a part in the rapid rise of Boo! to South African stardom, writes Andrea Burgener For a rare few seconds, Princess Leonie’s tight-as-a-tourniquet drum rhythms are still. Chris Chameleon, lead singer and self-proclaimed resident polysexual of Boo! is remonstrating with the cheering, applauding […]
Cameron Duodu:LETTER FROM THE NORTH Are you as confused about the Kosovo situation as I am? On the face of it, Nato is doing a great job: bombing Slobodan Milosevic into stopping the atrocities he’s been inflicting on the ethnic Albanian population of Kosovo. The stories of these atrocities are harrowing. Young men rounded up […]
ISAAC MOFOKENG, the man who shot and wounded Johannesburg Zoo’s Max the gorilla while fleeing from police in July 1994, was sentenced to 40 years in jail in the Johannesburg Regional Court on Friday. Mofokeng, who was convicted on 10 counts including rape, robbery, housebreaking and malicious damage to property (for shooting the R2,5-million gorilla), […]
Phillip van Niekerk:FROM THE EDITOR’S DESK On Monday morning I arrived at work and received the following e-mail from Charlene Smith, one of our correspondents: “I was attacked in my home on Thursday night and raped. I am writing about it, not only because I think `victims’ should speak out, but because, except for the […]
Marianne Merten The mother of Renata Ismail, snatched on March 27 from a modest block of flats in Kuils River, Cape Town, spent the little girl’s fifth birthday on Easter Monday at her husband’s hospital bedside. Messages of support were stuck on her living room wall, and cars parked in the road in front displayed […]
extremism The country’s first election since the genocide was an important test for Hutus and Tutsis. Chris McGreal reports from Rubona Sosthene Niyitegeka is an unsung hero of the Rwandan genocide. After the killing began five years ago this month, the Hutu shopkeeper cajoled, bribed and blackmailed dozens of his neighbours into sheltering Tutsis from […]
Are you a good citizen? Do you prefer Hansa to Castle? Market research reveals it all to the advertising industry, reports David le Page How do marketers and advertisers decide whether their bombardment of messages, subliminal or otherwise, is sinking into our collective consciousness with sufficient force to make their efforts worthwhile and cost-effective? Well, […]
A PARALYSING virus has killed nine children in Angola’s Luanda province where some 206 children have been hit by the unidentified ailment, the health ministry said Wednesday. Angolan specialists have said the illness, which mainly affects children under 11 years of age, was not polio. They have sent samples to South Africa for analysis. Results […]
Gabon have not lost at home for 28 years, so Bafana Bafana face an uphill battle at the Omar Bongo stadium, writes Andrew Muchineripi South Africa enter hillier terrain on Saturday after a relatively flat passage through the first half of their qualifying programme for the 2000 African Nations Cup. Gabon may, ultimately, have been […]
David Shapshak While cellphones are leaping forward, the big business players who determine which protocols they operate on have been lagging behind. Developments for the next, or third, generation of cellphones have been stalled while the two dominant players, Europe and the United States, were deadlocked over which of their protocols should be the new […]
In the hope of spoiling your meal or trip home, or of making still less pleasant your absorption of the evening news, here are two thoughts on war which some of us on the Mail & Guardian have recently been discussing. One is about war as Nato tries to wage it; the other is about […]
Over the next two weeks 59 tons of African ivory will be sold to Japan. Leading elephant researchers argue this could open the door to wider elephant slaughter Three shipments of 59,1 tons of ivory will be auctioned and sold to Japanese traders in the next two weeks, in terms of a recent international decision […]
Howard Barrell The African National Congress and the smaller opposition parties expect voter support for the New National Party to collapse in coming weeks as high-profile defections by NNP leaders continue. Some rival party strategists are now suggesting that, on June 2, the NNP may get only a quarter of the votes it achieved in […]
There’s no escaping it.You’ve dabbled in the Internet, made a few trades and earned a few bucks. You think you’re pretty good. You’re not alone. The ease and low cost of trading over the Internet coupled with the boom in major stock markets have convinced many people that they’re the greatest traders of all time […]
Dan Atkinson in London Warren Buffet – a chap who ought to know – once described the stock market as being merely a reference point, allowing investors to check whether anyone was offering to do anything foolish. Much the same could be said of the gold price which, most of the time, indicates whether, in […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Durban | Friday 6.00pm. DOUBLE Olympic gold medallist Penny Heyns swam her second fastest 200m breaststroke ever in 2:25,84 at the national swimming championships in Durban on Friday, just missing her Olympic and African mark of 2:25,41. Free State’s Ryk Neethling broke the African record in the men’s 100m freestyle, dramatically coming from […]
Nick Paul is in stitches as the NSA gallery becomes a catwalk for a unique collaboration between art and fashion Just when you think it’s time to entertain the possibility that we’ve run out of new ideas, along comes somebody and invents a backpack with only one strap. Ex fashion semper aliquid novi. Actually, those […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Friday 91.30am. CONTROVERSIAL playwright Mbongeni Ngema’s estate was sequestrated in the Pietermaritzburg High Court on Thursday in the wake the Sarafina II Aids play debacle. The sequestration follows legal action by the Heath Special Investigation Unit in its continued attempts to to recover some R14-million in taxpayers’ money spent on the […]
Eddie Butler Five Nations It remains the ironic charm of rugby. After months of the bitterest infighting possible without anyone resorting to blows – apparently it’s been apoplectically touch and go in several antechambers – a structure has been triumphantly unveiled that will give European rugby a sub- international springboard to international excellence: the English […]
ANGOLAN authorities are opposed to setting up humanitarian corridors for civilians affected by the civil war, government sources said on Wednesday. The United Nations World Food Programme supports such measures in order to ensure essential food can be distributed. But the government believes the current military situation precludes the setting up of the corridors. The […]