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 […]
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 […]
KENYAN security forces have closed the border with southern Somalia’s Bulo-Hawo district to stop fighting between factions of the Somali Nation Front from spilling into Kenya, police officials said on Friday. Kenyan security started preventing people from crossing the border from Somalia on Thursday after the killing in Bula-Hawo of SNF faction leader Ali Nur […]
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 […]
THURSDAY, 1.00PM: TOURING Super 12 teams that have grown used to having the red carpet rolled out for them by the Natal Rugby Union will be disappointed. The NRU has decided to give all Super 12 teams the cold shoulder after the suspension of flanker Wickus van Heerden’s 18 month ban for biting New South […]
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 […]
Mail & Guardian reporters The landmark Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) decision to deny amnesty to the killers of Chris Hani was not a political fix but was instead entirely consistent with the legislation governing the truth body. Opposition parties and relatives of the two killers, Clive Derby-Lewis and Janusz Walus, have slammed the decision, […]
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) […]
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), […]
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 […]
FORMER SA Defence Force special forces member Noel Robey told the Truth and Reconciliation Commission on Thursday how Mamelodi activists Dr Fabian Ribeiro and his wife Florence were murdered in 1986. Robey told the TRC’s amnesty committee that the murders were committed by two unknown special forces members from Northern Namibia. He said he was […]
AN Egyptian and a Tanzanian suspected of taking part in the deadly bombing of the United States embassy in the Tanzanian capital Dar es Salaam last year are due to appear before a resident magistrate again on Friday. This development in the drawn-out case follows the release by the United States FBI of a long-awaited […]
A NEW media award for women has been launched by the Forum for African Women Educationalists of South Africa, for the honouring of women journalists who work to highlight education and development issues for women. It will be called the Fawe Award for Media Excellence. The first award ceremony will be held in Cape Town […]
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 […]
What my mother’s friends stumbled across came from observing their own lives, and those of their daughters and grand- daughters – is namely, that women (unless they are drunk, or mad, or abused, or prostitutes, or trying to prove something) are not generally sexually promiscuous. Neither are most men, but they probably would be, given […]
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 […]
Ferial Haffajee African National Congress deputy president Jacob Zuma will take the party’s manifesto to Free State’s Mangaung stadium tomorrow alongside Winnie Madikizela-Mandela. Bets are on which leader gets the loudest vivas. Two weeks ago, ANC president Thabo Mbeki had to halt a crucial election launch speech as Madikizela-Mandela arrived late at Orlando stadium. An […]
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 […]
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 […]
It is not an enviable position Superintendent Pieter Lategan, commander of the South African Police Service’s endangered species protection unit (ESPU), finds himself in (“`Cream Poachers’ are greatest threat to Africa’s wildlife”, Monitor, April 1 to 8). Lategan’s struggling unit was thrown a $460 000 lifeline by an ostensibly harmless supporter. This came about in […]
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 […]
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 […]
Jane Rosenthal THE TIKIELINE YUPPIE by Mehlaleng Mosotho (Vivlia) NIGHTS OF IMMORALITY by Colin “Jiggs” Smuts (Vivlia) In their different ways both these books indicate that more than a decade ago change and transformation were alive and well in downtown Johannesburg. Both have dark- skinned protagonists, booze flows freely, women abound (not only as objects […]
AMANDA COETZER, seeded fifth in the $520000Bausch and Lomb women’s tennis tournament on Amelia Island in Florida, took her second-round match against Lilia Osterlich of the US in straight sets, 6-4, 6-2 to advance into the third round. In other results, 4th seeded Mary Pierce of France’s match against Catalina Cristea of Romania was a […]
THE South African Rugby Football Union on Wednesday said they will investigate allegations that members of the under-19 squad returning from the FIRA Junior World Championship in Wales misbehaved on the flight. “We view these allegations in a very serious light,” Sarfu CEO, Rian Oberholzer said in a statement. “We cannot allow any behaviour that […]
PRESIDENT Nelson Mandela ended his visit to Oman on Thursday by saying he is keen to see an institute for Gulf studies created in his country, the sultanate’s official ONA news agency said. The institute “is needed to promote a better understanding, not only in the political and economic fields, but also cultural,” he told […]
THE Stormers side was named on Wednesday afternoon, with Corne Krige continuing as vice-captain. Stormers: Percy Montgomery, Breyton Paulse, Robbie Fleck, Andy Marinos, Pieter Rossouw, Braam van Straaten, Dan van Zyl, Bobby Skinstad (captain), Robbie Brink, Corne Krige, Johnny Trytsman, Selborne Boome, Cobus Visagie, Charl Marais, Robbie Kempson. Reserves: Manie du Toit, Louis Koen, Joggie […]
SOME 80% of staff at the Agricultural and Rural Development Corporation in Northern Province face the axe after the agriculture department severely cut the corporation’s budget this year. ARDC Managing Director Dr Alidzulwi Naledzani said on Wednesday that the corporation’s financial woes began last year when its budget was cut from R74-million to R48-million. This […]
THE voting rights of South African citizens abroad during elections, and of prisoners, will be considered by Cabinet in its Thursday afternoon meeting, according to Ronnie Mamoepa, spokesman for Deputy President Thabo Mbeki. Opposition parties have united to demand that citizens abroad be allowed to vote, following a Constitutional Court decision last week that prisoners […]
NIGERIA has agreed to co-host the 2000 African Cup of Nations with Ghana. Chief of General Staff Vice Admiral Mike Akhigbe said before the start of a World Youth Championship match in Ibadan late on Sunday that Nigeria is looking forward to hosting the competition with Ghana in January and February next year. The Confederation […]
NATIONAL carrier Libyan Arab Airlines (LAA) said on Wednesday it is examining steps to resume international flights after the United Nations suspended a seven-year air embargo on Tripoli. “Technical committees will be set up to examine putting Libyan planes back into service,” LAA president Mohammad Abssim told reporters in Cairo, where two of LAA’s 12 […]
TAPPE HENNING, referee for Saturday’s Super 12 match between the Stormers and the Sharks at Newlands, will attend the after-match press conference with his two touch judges, the Western Province Rugby Football Union said on Wednesday. With more and more referees joining the professional code, players, administrators and the media have asked for referees to […]