Staff Reporter

John Matshikiza:WITH THE LID OFF It’s late at night. I’m sitting at a bar in suburban Cape Town, minding my own business, when a bunch of formerly white men come bundling in, some with their wives. They are all badly dressed: grey shoes, flannel trousers, cheap leather jackets, white shirts and tacky ties. They are […]

NEGOTIATIONS are under way to secure the release of a British oil worker kidnapped on Thursday in the troubled Niger Delta region, a British embassy spokesperson said on Friday.The oil man was seized on Thursday by youths demanding money. His identity, and that of the company he works for, are being withheld at the request […]

Farmers on South Africa’s northern border are dispossessing their South African workers and trucking in Zimbabweans, who are willing to work for R5 a day. Ann Eveleth reports Maswiri Boerdery director Andries Fourie is the quintessential old-style farmer. Khaki- clad and drunk with the power he exerts over the 400 South African farmworkers he dismissed […]

Kevin Mitchell Boxing In the movies, the fighters only bleed pretty. Slap in front of the camera means mascara, not knuckle. But not all boxers are squash-nosed pugs and, this Sunday, there are three at work on either side of the Atlantic who manage the rare feet of making both their opponents and young women […]

TWO Sierra Leonean government ministers thought to have been killed in the rebel invasion of Freetown may actually have been kidnapped by the rebels, authorities said on Friday.”Rumours persist that they are still alive and in the hands of the rebels,” a statement from the president’s office said of Public Affairs Minister, Mohamed Sesay, and […]

LAGOS police have arrested 13 people and banned northern cattle herders from using a 50-year-old market after a clash with oil tanker drivers this week left several people dead. The ban came after oil tanker drivers threatened strike action. The drivers regularly hold Lagos to ransom by strikes, using the chronic fuel shortage — in […]

Mungo Soggot A senior banker and two accomplices will be tried in the Germiston regional court next month for fraudulently claiming R45-million in tax rebates for non-existent goods they purported to sell to central African countries. According to court documents, the syndicate set up a chain of three companies to generate false invoices for hi-tech […]

There’s a school of thought that argues that the provinces should have limited taxation powers, writes Charlene Smith Amid reports of budgetary chaos at provincial level, the Financial and Fiscal Commission is increasing pressure on the government to allow the provinces limited taxation powers. The commission, which advises the minister of finance on provincial budgetary […]

Sechaba ka’Nkosi The African National Congress leadership meets this weekend to finalise the political future of candidates heading its election nomination list. With the party upbeat about the possibility of netting more than 60% of the vote in the general election, the crucial three-day meeting has drawn much interest because it has to decide who […]

You don’t have to be paranoid to buy a Pentium, but it helps, writes John Naughton If you thought Microsoft was an aggressively competitive company, then you’ve never heard of Intel, the outfit which makes the processor chips inside most of the world’s computers. Andy Grove, until recently Intel’s head honcho, was famous for his […]

Fiona Macleod While limited legal trade in ivory was given the go-ahead this week, a report released by South Africa’s Endangered Species Protection Unit (ESPU) shows that the protection of endangered species in sub-Saharan Africa is in a dismal state. The report is based on an intensive six-month surveillance of 11 countries undertaken by ESPU […]

THE South African Insurance Association (SAIA) is to conduct a comprehensive national investigation into the effectiveness of fire services following concerns expressed by the short-term insurance industry that fire services are becoming less efficient, contributing to the severity of fire losses. SAIA chief executive Barry Scott said: “SAIA has contacted the minister of constitutional affairs […]

Alex Bellos, in Santos, reports on the joyous return of a modest footballing legend to his roots The world of football may have changed unrecognisably since the 1950s, but Pele still looks the same. His short Afro has hardly receded, keeping the unmistakable shape of when he was a young player. He is fit and […]

A series of confidential Foreign Office telegrams just released by the British Public Record Office sheds dramatic new light on the political storm that blew up in 1967 over England’s proposed touring party to South Africa. Alan Travis reports It was an urgent secret telegram from the Foreign Office in London to the British ambassador […]

Wonder Hlongwa and Tangeni Amupadhi Nelisiwe Dladla’s eyes are in constant motion, darting from corner to corner as she scans the faces of three strangers in the “the family room” of her house in Entembisweni. Dladla is scared and wary of strangers because her husband and brother-in-law were killed in separate incidents within a day. […]

Peter Conrad Iris Murdoch, the novelist and philosopher, who has died aged 79, was one of the best and most influential writers of the 20th century. Above all, she kept the traditional novel alive, and in so doing changed what it is capable of. She was not the heir – as she early and wrongly […]

Chiara Carter Veteran New National Party politician Peter Marais is talking to senior African National Congress leaders about his future in their party. Marais is one of a group of the NNP’s most senior Western Cape politicians who are considering jumping ship for the ANC. Marais’s office declined to comment, but according to ANC sources […]

Chiara Carter A by-election in Lotus River on the Cape Flats this week showed the New National Party still has clout with coloured voters. Although the Democratic Party has begun making inroads in heartlands of working-class coloured voters, it stands little chance of supplanting the NNP overnight. NNP candidate Nur-ud-din Bell won the ward with […]

Alex Dodd:LANDMARKS In February 1996 I was woken up in Dublin by the sort of phone call everyone dreads getting. “Take a deep breath. I’ve got some terrible news. Anne is dead.” One of my closest and most inspiring friends had been killed in a head-on collision. Anne’s last words to me had been: “Come […]

THE Ceasefire Campaign on Friday said the government’s planned R29-billion arms purchases will draw scarce resources away from the social sector, while the much-vaunted counter-trade benefits are largely fictional. The campaign’s Rob Thomson said the government has not explained how it calculates the R110-billion figure it has been throwing around. Pointing out that an Economic […]

A shortage of forensic pathologists and a lack of post-mortem facilities have caused several miscarriages of justice, writes Sue Blaine Statistics show that three in every thousand South Africans will die an unnatural death by murder, suicide or accident – 80 000 a year. A post-mortem must be conducted on every person who dies an […]

THE Swedish government has pledged R450-million to South Africa over the next three years in the form of a development co-operation agreement. Signed by Swedish Foreign Minister Anna Lindh and South Africa’s Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister Aziz Pahad in Cape Town on Friday, the agreement aims to fund education, housing, arts and culture and urban […]

THE Angolan army claimed on Friday to have recaptured the strategically important northern town of Mbanza-Congo from Unita rebels.The city, 500km north of Luanda, near the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo, is among the main points of access to economic targets such as the oil fields of Soyo on the Atlantic coast about […]

Evidence wa ka Ngobeni Several foreign prostitutes have been deported from South Africa after seeking police protection from vicious assaults by their local counterparts on the streets of Johannesburg. Prostitutes from as far afield as Russia and China are working in Hillbrow, but many have now moved off the streets and into clubs for shelter. […]

Suzanne Glass Body Language They sang arias together. They shared their mutual passion for the theatrical at the Centenary Operatic and Dramatic Society and became the best of friends. But the dramatics carried on off-stage when Jenny Cupit began an affair with Kathryn Linaker’s husband, then bought a Kitchen Devil knife and bludgeoned her “best […]

SHARES in the Liberty Life group tumbled for the second consecutive day on Thursday after initial enthusiasm on closer ties with Standard Bank cooled. Standard Bank Investment Corporation (Stanbic) announced a R5,6-billion tie-up with assurance giant Liberty Life earlier this week, taking the first step towards forging a new financial services giant. “There was an […]

David le Page Product: HYPERHEALTH: CD-ROM database on health and aliments supplied by Hyperhealth/ Protech Systems Requirements: Windows 3.1/95/98, 4Mb RAM, CD-ROM drive Surfing the Internet can give insight into what poor quality badly packaged information looks like, and what poor quality over- packaged information looks like. The Hyperhealth CD-ROM database is high-quality information that […]

Ted Leggett When the Prevention of Organised Crime Act went into full effect at the end of last month, South Africa quietly entered into a whole new era in law enforcement, for better or worse. The Act gives criminal justice officials some very powerful weapons with which to wage their war on crime, but like […]

Committed to changing our perceptions, the Centre for Photography looks set to put South African photographers on the map. Steve Smith reports Being an artist these days is an act of dogged optimism, particularly if you hope to make a living. There is little money available, either for private purchase or from government funding, and […]

Donna Block Cooking up a little something for Valentine’s Day? How about this. A little sport, a dash of sex, a pinch of Wall Street and a lot of the Internet, and what have you got? The recipe for “sexcess”. This is what happened on Super Bowl Sunday when a 30-second advert promoting Victoria’s Secret’s […]

Cameron Duodu:LETTER FROM THE NORTH Zimbabwe’s success as a nation means a lot to me, for I have invested a great deal of emotional capital in the country. I am one of the few non-Zimbabweans who can say I knew the late Herbert Chitepo personally; I knew the late Josiah Tongogara personally; I know … […]

found Benoni Charles Leonard `This is it! This is the site!” South Africans Roddy Quinn and Dan Chirboli looked at each other. “He must be mad,” Chirboli said to Quinn over the noise of the helicopter. “It’s just mine dumps … and it’s Benoni!” But Womad’s United Kingdom-based artistic director Thomas Brooman was convinced. Two […]