Angella Johnson VIEW FROM A BROAD They call themselves Tupac – after the murdered American gangsta rap singer Tupak Shakur – and are the latest gang to terrorise Soweto’s womenfolk, whom they abduct and rape with apparent impunity. “Some of them are HIV-positive and they do these things in order to deliberately pass on the […]
Alex Duval Smith Some things change – Zaire is now the Democratic Republic of Congo – but despots just change their spots. President Laurent-Dsir Kabila, hailed as heading a new breed of African leaders, increasingly looks like Mobutu Sese Seko, minus the leopard-skin hat. On May 17 1997, thousands of people welcomed Kabila’s victorious rebel […]
the `magic bullet’ The first thing to know about Viagra, the little blue erection pill, is that every man alive can recall at least one occasion when they’d have really liked to pop one. The second thing to know is that if you don’t believe the first thing, you soon will. Viagra is expected to […]
Ken Barris THE IBIS TAPESTRY by Mike Nicol (Knopf) The cover blurb describes The Ibis Tapestry as “a thriller with all the searing immediacy of today’s headlines”. An understandable bit of commercial fantasy perhaps, but wildly inaccurate, and unjust to a book that should be taken seriously on its own terms: as a referential maze […]
Hazel Friedman Where there’s smoke there isn’t always fire. But there could possibly be a free air ticket. This is what panic-stricken passengers discovered this week after their flight was twice aborted as a result of a fire alert on board. Passengers at Johannesburg International airport had boarded their Virgin Atlantic aircraft en route to […]
Wonder Hlongwa Estranged Inkatha Freedom Party leader Sipho Mzimela may rejoin the African National Congress, according to political colleagues who say he has been seeking advice about where his political future lies. Mzimela would not comment this week, except to confirm that he is still an IFP MP and a member of the party. He […]
Bobby Peek The survival of the constitutional right to a healthy environment depends on the outcome of an unprecedented battle raging through almost every ministry and department of the government. The executive branch is debating the fate of the draft National Environmental Management Bill. Will the Bill vindicate the constitutional right to “an environment that […]
Mail & Guardian reporter Conflict is once again engulfing Central Africa, killing the dream of regeneration and renaissance that came with the euphoria that accompanied the fall of the Zairean despot Mobutu Sese Seko more than a year ago. Then, it was believed that the series of interlocking wars, from Sudan in the north-east to […]
Howard Barrell The South African Communist Party leadership has called for a special meeting next week with Deputy President Thabo Mbeki and other top African National Congress officials to try to resolve the crisis in relations between the two organisations. The SACP wants the talks to take place before an ANC national executive committee meeting […]
Suzy Bell Local music For someone who candidly admits to never listening to the radio, to CDs or to watching television, it’s with total integrity that Madala Kunene can announce: “I’m not influenced by anyone.” It is Kunene’s poetic dreams that inspire him. Take his song Abangoma, from his heavenly album Madala Kon’Ko Man. Kunene […]
Robert Kirby: Loose Cannon I must confess to feeling a bit ambivalent about Dr Nkosazana Zuma’s latest anti- smoking crusade. As a three-years-on ex-puffer, my wife assures me I have all but emptied my well of self- righteous reformist zeal. I now tend to let people get on with their tobacco undisturbed by pious sermonettes […]
Andrew Muchineripi Soccer Test cricket umpire Mervyn Kitchen is not the only official removing dollops of egg from his face. Premier Soccer League referee Achmat Salie cautioned Orlando Pirates midfielder Naughty Mokoena twice on Sunday without sending him off. Mokoena received a yellow card soon after half-time at Vaal Professionals in the opening round of […]
Just pop down to the hardware Stuart Hess The world was shocked by the Oklahoma bombing in the United States in 1995, and the FBI was severely rattled by an explosion at the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games. In both instances, pipe bombs were the weapons of choice. More than 80 pipe bombs have exploded in […]
Lesley Cowling When I spotted the neat little Honda Ballade, all sparkling in mint white, parked alongside Jan Smuts Avenue at the plush premises of Car Gallery, I didn’t think of all those snide jokes about used-car salesmen. The car was exactly like the much- loved Honda stolen from me two months before, so I […]
Zwelithini-ka Mvelase Frankly, if South Africans respected and preserved what’s theirs, with as much jealousy as Americans do, there would be enough greats to fill volumes. Whether those names were crooks or saints, wouldn’t matter a dime. This flits past my mind as I sit sipping gin with die ouens and – boom! – we […]
Alex Dodd This country has seen so many hundreds, so many thousands of bloody, gruesome, sicko murders one wonders what makes certain cases linger, like Lady Macbeth’s inescapably bloody hands, haunting the psyche of a nation. In the case of Charmaine Phillips and Peter Grundlingh, the couple tried for murdering four people between Durban and […]
As one of South Africa’s major outsider artists faces the loss of his unique Clarens homestead, Matthew Krouse and Alex Dodd journey to the source of a town’s painful conflict A Kafkaesque man in a black suit and tie flees across a surreal red landscape populated by creatures that could come from land or sea, […]
Gill Moodie The government has taken the first steps towards unravelling the mess that is its information technology (IT) – and the good news for taxpayers is that government services are likely to become cheaper and faster as a result. The master plan, unveiled recently by the Department of Public Service and Administration, kicks off […]
Phillip Kakaza CD of the week In the past four years the Blood and Fire label has established itself as the cutting edge label in reggae reissues. It introduced a whole generation of producers and DJs who took advantage of the new musical venture. Jamaican vocal singles were released with instrumentals – sometimes just rhythm […]
at bay Ferial Haffajee It is a peaceful Saturday afternoon at a women’s shelter in the inner city in Johannesburg. Two women sit in the lounge and chat to a friend who is ironing. There is a calm about the place – it is here that battered women find refuge from abusive relationships and forge […]
Howard W French Rebel forces in the Democractic Republic of Congo consolidated their hold on Wednesday on much of the eastern regions of the country, and the names of civilian leaders who might replace the embattled President Laurent-Dsir Kabila if the uprising succeeds began to circulate for the first time. In the clearest indication so […]
Mark Coetzee On show in Cape Town The art forms traditionally relegated to women and the manner in which these are produced have undergone radical change over the last decade. Judy Chicago with her The Dinner Party once and for all destroyed a categorization based on production associated to gender, and highlighted that the visual […]
The mussel, a shellfish long known as a gourmet treat for the rich, has gained new significance for a community living in poverty on the KwaZulu-Natal North Coast. For the people of Sokhulu, mussels are not a luxury, but a necessity – a valuable regular source of protein which keeps starvation at bay. Before 1996, […]
All Africa Three South African entries have been selected among the 23 films chosen by film awards advisor Lionel Ngakane to compete in this year’s 11th M-Net All Africa Film Awards. The three local films – Chikin Biznis: The Whole Story; Kaalgat Tussen die Daisies and The Sexy Girls – were selected together with the […]
forgiveness There was something awfully satisfying about that klap Gideon Nieuwoudt got on the back of his head this week. For those who missed the story as told by the South African Press Association, Nieuwoudt – a former security policeman particularly notorious in the Eastern Cape – had gone to the Port Elizabeth home of […]
Tensions are running high in Lesotho as an ongoing vote recount reveals evidence of election fraud, writes William Boot Long-simmering dissatisfaction over Lesotho’s May 23 elections finally reached boiling point this week, and it is clear the political temperature is not going to come down until the issue is resolved. Supporters of opposition parties marched […]
Fumane Diseko hit the streets to find out if sisters have felt the changes of the past four years Sam Canham (30), unemployed, from Durban `If a woman has been divorced, she should not pay taxes because they are the bread winners in the family and, at the end of the day, they have nothing […]
Arnold Kemp in Paris Tour de France It was 9.30pm when the police came for Rodolfo Massi, entering his hotel by a back door. They searched his room and found corticoids in a case. They gave him time to shower and eat before taking him to the police station. Then they drove him north from […]
Iden Wetherell An understanding of diplomacy, it would seem, is not a requirement for South Africa’s diplomats serving abroad. One based in Harare has made such a nuisance of himself, he faces the rare penalty of being sent home for good. Jabu Buthelezi is, in fact, an employee of the Department of Home Affairs. But […]
The Internet feels to many of its more spiritually-minded proponents like a hardwiring of human consciousness. If and when poor people and developing nations get access to these technologies, we will all have the means, at least electronically, to access one another’s information, opinions, and feelings. Although it will certainly occur more subtly than in […]
Max du Preez has never been in therapy, but he’s on the box again with a new current affairs programme. Alex Dodd reports `I’ve never seriously considered therapy,” says Max du Preez, who has spent his last two years making damn sure that the public got to see exactly what went on at the truth […]
Banks don’t like risks, but this year’s FNB-Vita Art Prize winner is the exception, writes Brenda Atkinson If controversy increases exponentially with an event’s public success, then the recently re-launched FNB-Vita Art Prize is on the right track to the artworld jugular. Last week’s announcement of perverse performance artist Steven Cohen as the competition’s winner […]