Carlton Centre in downtown Johannesburg is flooded by hundreds of young people during weekends. They file around the circular ring at the entrance on the first floor where they peer admiringly at displays of shiny new BMWs two floors below. Others mill around the corridors, visiting shop windows and restaurants. The scene is repeated in […]
Bongani Siqoko Drunken men and women’s voices rise from the beer hall in Monyakeng township, Wesselbron, about 45km from Kroonstad in the Free State. Life seems normal, but the truth is the exact opposite. This community is grief-stricken and angry over the death of Lethusang Mohloane – whose only sin was to shoot birds on […]
The most famous lover of all time spent his twilight years as a librarian in a little- known Czech town. Kate Connolly reports Macaroni, crayfish, and duck in marmalade sauce was on the menu at a strange little dinner in a dilapidated castle in northern Bohemia last week. The guests were as weirdly diverse as […]
Karlin Lillington reports on the real power behind innovation on the Web It’s late night in Johannesburg, as a computer screen glows blue with a live video feed. Somewhere in a small studio in mid-afternoon Los Angeles, a sultry blonde with waist-length hair straddles a desk and leaves little to the imagination. Wearing nothing but […]
Andy Capostagno Rugby We have reached that time of the year when people begin to talk in clichs. Stuff like: “We don’t believe that we are favourites for the match. Just because it’s a northern hemisphere team we’re expected to win comfortably, but we won’t be taking them for granted. A test match is a […]
Antjie Krog’s book on the truth commission has been highly acclaimed. But, argues Claudia Braude, Krog is too creative with the truth Fact, fiction or falsehood? The question is everywhere in reading poet and journalist Antjie Krog’s Country of My Skull (Random House). It is the first book on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), […]
Brenda Atkinson You’ve gotta love the Absa Group. This corporate banking crowd has been quietly ploughing money into local contemporary art for, oh, quite some time now. They continued to build the collection initiated by Volkskas in the days when you couldn’t see the bank tellers for the Van Wouws. They’ve endorsed the Volkskas Bank […]
Our young sport stars have become role models for their fans, writes Bongani Siqoko They may not be big stars and big names in the league of Ronaldo, Mike Tyson or Tiger Woods yet, but they are certainly riding the crest of the wave in their chosen sports. They are still young and have a […]
Inga Latham On stage in Cape Town In the Coffee Lounge in Cape Town, comedian Chris McEvoy is warming up with Sczhoid before the Grahamstown run of his one-man show, Bitter. After the three flights of stairs up to the Top Floor Theatre, McEvoy is lucky any of us still have breath with which to […]
Olivia Strange Pursuits Sorry, chaps. Although it’s definitely your province, you’re worse at it than we are. Women, that is, and fly fishing. “Their timing is so much better. They’re relaxed about it and don’t become panicked or competitive,” says Mark Eardley, compleat fly fisherman and instructor at the Footloose Trout Farm just outside Johannesburg. […]
Ronald Atkins Jazz CDs of the week Discussing jazz and how the free-wheeling Sixties changed the rules, the double bass is often singled out for its newly liberated role. Regarded as the workhorses of bebop, pounding the beat in the background, bassists now moved towards the front. As a member of Ornette Coleman’s original quartet, […]
Charl Blignaut On stage in Johannesburg `Eskus me,” says a heavily pregnant Lila Luna-Skya in her bruised and broken English, “Uh know is not very glamorous when you hav to give birth on stage .” But I mean what can a girl do? Particularly when she’s a foreigner in a foreign country. And not just […]
Right to Reply NSGMinerals (Pty)Ltd: We refer to your article “De Beers took my mine” (June 5 to 11). Most of the facts in that article are mis-stated and misleading. Our intervention over Marsfontein was certainly not an attempt to “wrest control of the mining rights from SouthernEra” – SouthernEra has never had ownership of […]
In the hierarchy of crimes it is the murderer who is regarded with particular distaste and in the pantheon of murderers there is none who evokes quite as much horror as the poisoner. There is, therefore, something inevitable about the Truth and Reconciliation Commission winding up its work with the disclosure of a poisoning conspiracy […]
Wally Mbhele The Mozambican judge handling the case of detained foreign affairs official Robert McBride has been threatened by people he believes to be South African agents who have ordered him to nail McBride or “otherwise you’ll be in trouble”. A reliable source has informed the Mail & Guardian that Judge Carlos Caetano, who has […]
Charl Blignaut went to the 1998 Miss Soweto `beauty bash’ at the Standard Bank Arena and liked what he saw The tone of this year’s Miss Soweto pageant was made perfectly clear right at the outset of the event. Opening the proceedings in the Standard Bank Arena last Saturday was none other than local pop […]
Andy Duffy Students and workers at the University of the North (Turfloop) have staged a remarkable coup, barring their academics and management from any role in the appointment of the university’s new vice-chancellor. Professor Njabulo Ndebele’s five-year tenure expires at the end of this month. A shortlist was presented as a done deal to the […]
Tangeni Amupadhi The People’s Poet, Mzwakhe Mbuli, believes he may have been set up on robbery charges because he was poised to blow the whistle on a drugs and gun-running ring involving top government officials. This week Mbuli shed some light on a smuggling conspiracy between South Africa and Swaziland as a possible reason why […]
Tangeni Amupadhi The National Youth Commission has declared 1998 a year of delivery after two years of talk-shops and much fuss about the salary of its chair. For the youth of South Africa, however, the commission is doing too little, too slowly. Random interviews conducted with youth this week revealed high levels of impatience with […]
Neil Manthorp Cricket The worst possible news for England became the best thing that could have happened to Dominic Cork during the first Test. Darren Gough’s broken finger was the result of crass thinking from the dressing room. Amazingly, Alec Stewart declared after the match that his team had “played risky and daring cricket” and […]
Soccer legend Ruud Gullit gives his views on how to survive the biggest soccer event of its kind The most important thing is to take the first round very seriously indeed. It is not just a matter of getting the lesser nations out of the way before the real fun starts: teams that think that […]
This is a conflict as strangely conducted as it is pointless in origin, writes David Hirst in Zalambesa Zalambesa is a natural pathway for armies. It lies on what, when Eritrea was still a province of Ethiopia, was a main highway between Addis Ababa and Asmara. Set in spectacular landscape of deep gorges, fantastic rock […]
Who is. . . Abdusalam Abubakar? Chris McGreal and The New York Times One of the few things Nigerians can confidently conclude about their new military leader is that he is no Sani Abacha. General Abdusalam Abubakar is a mild-mannered career soldier who progressed by avoiding the Machiavellian military politics – and coup plots – […]
Angella Johnson VIEW FROM A BROAD `Hi! I’m Angella and I’m a compulsive overeater.” “Hello Angella. Welcome,” comes the rousing chorus. I look at the 30 eager faces peering expectantly at me and feel a rush of anxiety. You see, I am the new girl. The latest victim. They are almost drooling in anticipation of […]
under the microscope Stories emerging at the truth commission this week of the apartheid government’s `chemical warfare’ sound farcical, but the results were sometimes deadly, writes David Beresford The difficulty was in deciding whether it was tragedy or farce that was being played out on the 10th floor of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s headquarters […]
Lesley Cowling A new state-of-the-art telescope to be built in the Karoo will give South African astronomers a window seat on the furthest journey yet through southern skies. The construction of the R100-million Southern African Large Telescope (Salt) at Sutherland, approved by Cabinet last week, means local cosmologists can now maintain their position at the […]
South Africa’s economic fortune may once have been built on gold, but nowadays an ill-timed investment in the metal might just lead to economic ruin. Gold-board shares have recently become among the most volatile of choices, a victim of an erratic international gold price. But there are believers who claim there is money to be […]
Ann Eveleth A row broke out this week between the Department of Agriculture and other parties engaged in the campaign against land degradation. The heated fracas – on the eve of World Desertification Day next Wednesday – follows a decision by national and provincial agriculture officials to disband a broad-based steering committee set up in […]
Princess Anne had some. So did the pope. And so did the king and queen of Spain. Mate de coca, that is, or coca tea. It is recommended for anyone arriving at the high altitude of La Paz, the capital of Bolivia in South America. The tea is credited with warding off the side effects […]
Adam Mars-Jones THE WHEREABOUTS OF ENEAS McNULTY by Sebastian Barry (Picador, R110) Sebastian Barry’s new novel is so full of magnetising beauty that it all but harasses a reader into submission. You can try to protest, to say, “I’m a reader and you’re a book, can we not keep this on a professional basis?”, but […]
Chris Roper The Smirnoff International Fashion Awards proved one thing: the fashion world is almost always at least five years behind whatever is culturally and ideologically current. This was brought home to me forcibly when I took my seat and found myself impaled on a glass ashtray. They’re actually encouraging people to smoke in the […]
Suzy Bell He’s decidedly upbeat, helluva hip and deliciously quirky. He’s the feverishly talented young editor of Directions men’s magazine. Brendan Cooper (28) is ever so stylish in antique velvet green Diesel jeans, black Woolies T-shirt, Adidas trainers. With a BA in psychology and after two years gallivanting around Europe, he cut his teeth on […]