herStoriA and Quality Life magazines have announced the winners of their story competition. Lise Day of George took first place with her story Malgas Point, Henrietta Rose-Innes of Cape Town came second with Conservation, and Graeme Friedman of Johannesburg came third with The Finger of God. The winning stories are published in this month’s edition […]
Jonathan Miller reports on how the Internet has become a seething mass of fraud and disinformation Last month, media around the world picked up on the story that a teenage couple in the United States were preparing to lose their virginity live on the Internet. A special website had even been established to broadcast this […]
Suzanne Wilton and Sasha Nagy Canadian fugitive Patrick Steven Ryan’s ties to extreme right-wing groups in South Africa have become part of a Calgary police investigation into his role in the violent armed robbery of an armoured car last March. Ryan, whose connections to white- supremacist groups are also part of the investigation, visited South […]
Brenda Atkinson On show in Johannesburg The venue that hosts Holdings: Refiguring the Archive is the vast, arched, high-ceilinged former engineering block at Wits University. The spacious room in which the show is installed has 1970s-brown formica floors, odd built intrusions into space and the comfortable sepia of use. It’s an appropriate space for an […]
Andy Capostagno Rugby August 1 1998 was a big day for South African rugby, but will it be bigger or more important than August 7? On August 1 the contractual agreement between the South African Rugby Football Union (Sarfu) and the squad which won the World Cup in 1995 came to an end. On Friday, […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
interdict’ Ferial Haffajee All that Thembi Zikhali needed to enforce her interdict was proof that it existed. Because it is a court order, police are compelled to enforce it. “Police have no discretion,” says lawyer Joanne Fedler of the legal advocacy trust, Tshwaranang. The domestic violence Bill, a watershed piece of draft legislation, could curb […]
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 […]
The two most senior African National Congress officials in the Free State have been shunned by their supporters on the eve of the party’s preparations to elect new provincial leadership. ANC Premier Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri and the provincial chair, Zingile Dingale, appear to be facing the chop. None of the 10 Free State ANC regional branches […]
for Savimbi Tangeni Amupadhi A former Civil Co-operation Bureau (CCB) agent named as the ring-leader in the theft of arms from military bases is now said to be organising mercenaries for Unita. Johan Niemoller, said to be the leader of Die Volk, whose members allegedly stole weapons from two military bases in the Free State, […]
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 […]
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 […]
Paul Theroux often makes enemies of those he writes about. Now he has written about VSNaipaul, once his close friend. Tim Adams reports Paul Theroux has had more than one existence. “You have as many lives as you want,” he says. “But you have to take them. You have to be up to it. The […]
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 […]
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 […]
Chris Gordon Unita is continuing to recapture small areas in the Angolan countryside on a daily basis, sowing terror to reach their objectives. Diplomats in Luanda believe Unita leader Jonas Savimbi now wants the Lusaka protocols renegotiated, with a better deal for Unita. Savimbi described the protocols as being the destruction of Unita. They should […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Cape Town | Thursday 11.00PM. ONE woman has died and another is seriously injured after a bomb exploded at the Salus building in Belleville, near Cape Town on Thursday. The building houses the police special task unit investigating violence associated with the vigilante group People Against Gangsterism and Drugs. A Pagad member arrested […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Wednesday 11.00AM. THE boys from Highland High School in Salt Lake City, Utah, provided one of the biggest surprises in the finals of the World Schools Rugby championships played in Harare on Tuesday. The American boys, playing for third and fourth spot against Tonga’s Tupou College, beat the boys from the […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Thursday 9.40PM. SOUTH Africa’s seamers did the trick on the first day of the series-deciding fifth cricket Test at Headingley, dismissing the home side for 230 runs. English opener Mark Butcher was, in fact, the only English bat who really worried the South Africans, as he played a stirling career-best innings […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg| Wednesday 4.30pm. THE South African Broadcasting Corporation is expected next week to announce a surplus of over R100-million in its end-of-year financial results, outgoing chief executive Zwelakhe Sisulu said at a function in Johannesburg on Wednesday. “We no longer have an identification crisis … The SABC is poised to enter the next […]
TRISH MURPHY, Johannesburg | Wednesday 9.00PM. A TEAM of United States military personnel is in Rwanda, according to a report confirmed by the Pentagon. The 12 soldiers, part of an “assessment team”, were seen in the vicinity of the Gisenyi border post, which is close to Goma in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Goma was […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Windhoek | Thursday 9.00pm. ZAMBIAN President Frederick Chiluba has accused Unita rebels in Angola of defying the 1994 peace accords signed in Lusaka in an attempt to end 16 years of civil war. Chiluba appealed to Unita on Wednesday night to support current United Nations mediation to restore peace in the Southern African […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Durban | Thursday 10.00pm. AFRICAN National Congress protesters in KwaZulu Natal are planning to march on the offices of KZN attorney-general Tim McNally and provincial police commissioner Chris Serfontein to demand their resignations. The marches will be part of a programme of mass action by the ANC in KZN to protest against the […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Wednesday 10.30AM. WESTERN Province will field a full-strength squad, including Springboks Bobby Skinstad, Andrew Aitken, Selborne Boome and Chester Williams, when they face Eastern Province in a Currie Cup match in Cape Town on Saturday. Coach Alan Solomons also makes his return to Newlands after assisting Nick Mallett with the Springboks […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Thursday 12.15pm. OFFICIALS in the department of mineral and energy affairs on Thursday said they will urge Minerals and Energy Minister Penuell Maduna to ask government to intervene in the four-day-old chemical industry strike. Department Director General Gordon Sibya said: “We believe government has a duty to consider acting as a […]
CHRISTIAN FIGENSCHOU, Johannesburg | Thursday 4.00pm. IT emerged in the Pretoria High Court on Wednesday that more than 1000 policemen have been murdered in South Africa since 1994. Meanwhile, the South African Agricultural Union published statistics that show there were more than 2000 attacks on farmers, in which more than 500 farmers were murdered over […]
SARAH BULLEN in Johannesburg | Wednesday 4.00pm. BUSINESS confidence dropped by 1,9 index points to 90,3 in July from 92,2 in June, largely as a result of the country’s increasing net open forward position and the vulnerability of the balance of payments, the latest South African Chamber of Business Confidence Index released on Wednesday indicates. […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Leeds | Wednesday 11.30AM. THE South African cricket squad on Tuesday thwarted attempts by the English media to turn the series-deciding fifth Test at Headingley into a Donald-bashing party. The South African team refused to talk to the press after net practice on Tuesday, following the comments made by Allan Donald on the […]
SARAH BULLEN, Johannesburg | Tuesday, 3.00pm. THE total numbers of liquidations in the second quarter of 1998 rose a staggering 59,3% to 1034, from 649 liquidations in the previous quarters, the latest figures from the Central Statistical Services released on Tuesday indicate. The increase reflects a 21,6% increase compared with liquidations in the second quarter […]