Staff Reporter

Anew Viking anthology commemorates Nadine Gordimer’s 75th birthday. She spoke to Peter Godwin With the tentative tread of the dancer she once wanted to be, Nadine Gordimer steps noiselessly down the stairs from her afternoon nap. Dressed in black, she sits, taut as a sparrow, elbows on knees, chin on fists. She is quick to […]

Loose cannon: Robert Kirby This looming Christmas is, of course, the second last of both the present century and millennium. There also remains little over a year until the founder of the Christian religion hits that big ol’ double whammy and becomes the religion’s first 2 000-year-old Saviour. As He starts His penultimate Y2K lap, […]

directorate Stuart Hess South Africa’s first black female gynaecologist, Nothemba Simalela, will become the new head of the national Aids directorate on World Aids Day next Tuesday. A senior lecturer in obstetrics and gynaecology at the Medical University of South Africa (Medunsa), Simalela replaces Rose Smart. Smart said she is leaving as director because she […]

There were so many irritating presumptions in Joan Smith’s column, “Why women don’t cruise” (November 13 to 19), that it’s difficult to know where to begin to protest them. Shaun de Waal’s response in last week’s First Person took a considered look at the implications of Smith’s article for the nature/culture debate, but was, in […]

In the third report of his series on transformation, John Matisonn examines changes in the media after 1990 In the SABC’s radio archive, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin’s first speech on his return to Russia in 1917 survived 46 years of apartheid censorship. Lenin’s speech was still in the files in February 1994 when, after the SABC’s […]

Chiara Carter Deputy President Thabo Mbeki’s brother is one of the missing African National Congress guerrillas whose fate the Truth and Reconciliation Commission failed to establish while probing human rights abuses committed at the ANC’s notorious Quatro camp. Commissioners at an in-camera hearing earlier this year questioned General Andrew Masondo, the former ANC Angola commissar, […]

teacher Swapna Prabhakaran Durban maths teacher Busi Mzimela is paid her salary every month, despite the fact that she has not set foot inside a classroom for more than 18 months. Mzimela says she stopped teaching last April after a disagreement about her post at Ntwenhle High School. With several degrees behind her name, Mzimela […]

Ann Eveleth A white Hartebeespoort landowner staged a hunger strike this week to force the conservative local council to kick-start low-cost housing for about 50 000 black residents of this picturesque getaway outside Pretoria. Broederstroom smallholder Roger Roman launched his lone hunger strike and sit- in in front of the Hartebeespoort council offices on Wednesday. […]

Robin McKie It is the Holy Grail of physics, and it has eluded scientists for the past 30 years. Now researchers believe they are on the threshold of detecting the most elusive force in the cosmos: gravity waves. But if they find the waves do not exist, that would still be significant: it would prove […]

Evidence wa ka Ngobeni The rector of Technikon South Africa (TSA), Adriaan Buitendacht, is paid an annual salary of nearly R1-million. And he is scheduled to get a salary increase next year. Discontent is running high among workers, labour unions and senior staff at TSA about the “purported extravagant” salaries paid to top management, especially […]

Without more aid nearly 300 000 people, now subsisting on leaves and roots, will starve early next year, reports David Gough from Xuddur The threat of famine hangs over war- torn southern Somalia, for the second time in six years. The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) says as many as 300 000 people are […]

go’ Chiara Carter A damning report on the conflict-ridden University of the Transkei (Unitra) recommends that its principal, Alfred Moleah, take early retirement and the university’s finances be investigated. The report by independent assessor Louis Skweyiya was requested by Minister of Education Sibusiso Bengu. Skweyiya found that the relationship between Moleah and the rest of […]

The once-staid centre of Pretoria is bursting with cultural life waiting to be released, writes Charl Blignaut It’s a very different Church Square that we approach on a sweltering Sunday morning – and it’s not just that the drag queen trippling on the grass is drawing more attention from the startled pigeons than from the […]

Review of the week Matthew Krouse Cross-cultural art concepts don’t always work. Take Japanese Kabuki theatre – three decades ago America’s high-performance hippies borrowed elements from that archaic, ritualised tradition. Anticipating the global age, many hailed the invention, now only remembered as a pretentious fad. Two decades later, artists confronting the Aids pandemic are finding […]

rampage Elias Chitenje Trigger-happy security officers have turned Zambia into a killing field while at the same time stripping civilians of their illegal weapons. Unofficial sources put the number of suspects gunned down in cold blood by police and other security officers in the past month at more than 20. The indiscriminate killings reached unprecedented […]

Despite the pretty lights and bells, there’ll be little Christmas cheer and ho ho ho-ing in the retail sector this year, writes Ferial Haffajee At Edgars, Christmas comes in July. The manager of the city store in Johannesburg begins planning for the summer high season in mid-winter. “The atmosphere, the look, the gift- wrapping corners. […]

Louise Viljoen VIR ‘N PERS HUIS by Karin Cronj (Human &Rousseau) Karin Cronj’s novel Vir ‘n Pers Huis starts with a scene in a supermarket. The narrator is overcome with disgust as she observes a woman who gorges herself on the Danish pastries she is loading into her shopping trolley, and cringes pathetically while selecting […]

`snub’ Mungo Soggot The Bar and the Bench were awash with speculation this week that Judge John Myburgh is to resign as president of the Labour Court and quit the judiciary after being snubbed for promotion by the Judicial Service Commission (JSC). It is understood that Judge Myburgh, one of South Africa’s most respected judges, […]

Former Zimbabwean president Canaan Banana skipped bail and fled to Botswana, days before the Harare High Court found him guilty on 11 sex charges. Banana was found guilty in absentia on Thursday on two charges of sodomy, seven of indecent assault and two of committing unnatural acts. Sentencing will take place on December 10, and […]

readership Johnny Masilela DIPHORORO TSA BOPHELO edited by MV Shai (Heinemann Mamela Afrika Series) In his foreword, the editor and compiler of this Sepedi language collection of short stories, MV Shai, goes to great pains to explain what protest literature is all about. Were contributing authors asked to come up with political stories? The first […]

Stewart Dalby Spending It Antique clocks belong to an area of collecting, like Impressionist paintings, coins and vintage cars, which crashed in the early Nineties. This was because they were bought for investment. Why grandfather and other clocks should have been sought for speculative purposes is curious. Antique clocks are quintessentially English. It was not […]

Keith Henderson Although raves have been milked dry by all and sundry out for a quick buck, an Ice party is a different animal altogether. Entertainment moguls Ice are once more stepping up to the plate with the Ice Playstation Fusion Festival on Saturday November 28 at the Nasrec Amphitheatre. Those who have experienced Ice […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Thursday 11.00pm. SPRINGBOK hooker James Dalton may not make the starting line-up for the Springboks in their rugby Test against Ireland at Lansdowne Road after injuring a hamstring during practice on Thursday. Dalton injured the muscle on Tuesday during a gym session in Cork, but trained with the team on Wednesday. […]

ROB DAVIES, Johannesburg | Wednesday 10.30am. THURSDAY heralds the first South African cricket Test against the West Indies at the Wanderers in Johannesburg, and as tour openers go, none can be more important than this. The tour has been called the most important since South Africa’s return to international cricket, and with good reason. Brian […]

SARAH BULLEN, Johannesburg | Thursday 4.30pm. ONE would be forgiven for thinking the Johannesburg Stock Exchange lacked a pulse on Thursday as it all but shut down as the United States markets closed for Thanksgiving. A miserably thin volume at R667-million left the all share index 0,08% up, with the all gold index gaining 0,43%. […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Cape Town | Thursday 5.00pm. THE South African government’s decision to go on a massive arms shopping spree has sent out “an enormous signal” that it is serious about playing peacekeeper, Deputy Defence Minister Ronnie Kasrils s on Thursday. “If we had put this decision off … I would say the perception out […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Geneva | Wednesday 10.10am. RWANDAN Hutu rebels have turned to drug trafficking in order to finance their military operations in the Great Lakes region of Africa, according to a United Nations report issued in Geneva, Switzerland on Tuesday. The report said ex-soldiers of the Hutu nationalist regime ousted in 1994 after one of […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Wednesday 12.15pm ZIMBABWE has announced the launch of an eastern offensive in the Democratic Republic of Congo by allies of President Laurent Kabila. The Zimbabwean government said on Wednesday morning that “allied air force planes” inflicted heavy casualties and extensive damage to enemy targets in the Lake Tanganyika area over the […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Ulongwe | Wednesday 9.30am. SOUTH African scientists believe they have made a major breakthrough in the long battle against African Swine Fever with a Mozambique-based programme to develop pigs’ resistant to the killer virus. The scientists say a herd of such pigs could be used as breeding stock which in time could replace […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Tuesday 11.00am. THE government has agreed that South African Airways will take responsibility for R1-billion of Transnet’s pension fund deficit and debt, laying the groundwork for SAA’s partial privatisation and balance sheet restructuring. Business Day reported on Tuesday that the government and Transnet will absorb SAA’s remaining R3-billion portion of Transnet’s […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Tuesday 9.15pm. RWANDAN President Pasteur Bizimungu, whose country backs rebels in the Democratic Republic of Congo, said on Tuesday that he is prepared to “reach out the hand of peace” to DRC President Laurent Kabila during this week’s Franco-African summit in Paris. “I am absolutely prepared to meet President Kabila in […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Harare | Tuesday 3.45pm. THE International Monetary Fund has suspended $55-million in aid to Zimbabwe after the government’s seizure of 841 white-owned farms last week, Western diplomats said on Tuesday. The IMF believes that the seizures contradict decisions reached during round-table talks held in Zimbabwe in September where it was agreed that an […]