Alex Duval Smith in Zambezi, western Zambia In the darkness of the mud-brick hut, the glint in the man’s eye was as piercing as the flashes of light from the half-dozen diamonds in his palm. “They will cost you 1,6-million kwatcha [R4 800]. At the moment, I can also sell you emeralds, gold dust and […]
Andrew Worsdale Movies of the week I don’t have any friends I still know from my schooldays. It’s probably just as well. Most of them weren’t really friends because I was such a wise-ass. But two films opening this week give unique insight into the world of children and growing up. Both are rites- of-passage […]
Robert Kirby: Loose Cannon `One day you boys will find Latin phrases like these come in very useful,” alpaca-coated Brother H used to murmur as he savagely whipped our upturned hands with a thick leather whalebone-spined strap. Six hits. Three for the left, three for the right. A rider discipline to the hand- thrashings: learn […]
The male-to-male escort industry is booming, servicing clients who are typically middle- aged, affluent, white – and most often married. Charl Blignaut spends time at a whorehouse In the quiet street of a leafy suburb in the east of Johannesburg not even the next-door neighbours know that the house next door is a brothel. Why […]
Lesotho’s elections have been declared fair, but a host of inconsistencies points towards vote rigging, writes William Boot in Maseru The day before Lesotho’s general elections last Saturday, Lesotho Congress for Democracy (LCD) leader Pakaditha Mosisili stuck his neck out to predict: “We will win by a landslide.” He said this at a time when […]
Simon Caulkin Stock options have become the Nineties way of rewarding top managers. But as the number of options being granted has exploded, so the boom in share prices has inflated the value of those options. The sheer volume of stock options has achieved such scale that it threatens to undermine the validity of company […]
Charlene Smith On March 16 1984, former president PW Botha met his Mozambican counterpart, Samora Machel, at the Nkomati River to sign an accord that effectively blackmailed Mozambique. Next month, on June 6, President Nelson Mandela and Machel’s succesor, President Jaoquim Chissano, will open the Maputo development corridor, strengthening relations between the two countries and […]
ready for the spectacle of the World Cup Bongani Siqoko Soccer World Cup The whole universe will come to a standstill when reigning world champions Brazil take on Scotland in the opening game of the World Cup 98 in France at Saint Denis on June 10. Unlike the 1994 World Cup, which was a two-nation […]
Mzilikazi wa Afrika Police are investigating allegations that taxi bosses in Mpumalanga employed 40 Mozambicans as hired assassins. Investigators say taxi bosses hired the Mozambicans as the foreigners would be harder to track down than local hired assassins. “Our intelligence unit has found out that the Mozambican hit men are armed with powerful automatic rifles,” […]
Andrew Muchineripi Soccer When the World Cup draw was made in chilly Marseille last December, France and Denmark expressed happiness bordering on arrogance after being placed in the same group as minnows Saudi Arabia and South Africa. Recent events suggest it may not be quite so easy for the French and Danes with the Saudis […]
Sechaba ka’Nkosi The much-awaited Presidential Jobs Summit between the government, business and labour hangs in the balance following reports that senior Cabinet ministers tasked with formulating government proposals are deeply divided. The divisions are believed to be the reason why the government has been unable to table its proposals, more than two years after the […]
Charl Blignaut Shopping and Fucking, a controversial new theatre production, has, against all odds, ushered in a new era for Johannesburg’s Market Theatre – in the process taking its young cast into uncharted territory. The play, which contains some of the most explicit scenes ever seen on a local stage, was always going to be […]
Arvind Ganesan In their search for finite resources, oil companies must partner governments who may have dismal human rights records – witness Total’s involvement with the Burmese junta in constructing the Yadana natural-gas pipeline. In Colombia the drive to develop oil fields has landed companies in the middle of a war zone. To ensure oil […]
Uneven standards of community care mean the state’s new policy of releasing mental patients could be a bad plan, writes Andy Duffy The deaths of seven people at the hands of former state psychiatric patients in the Western Cape have exposed a raw nerve in state health circles. The Department of Health this week slammed […]
WEDNESDAY, 7.00PM: JOSEPH KONY and a group of his Lord’s Resistance Army forces have been surrounded by Ugandan troops at Polaro in the northern Gulu district of the country. Ugandan troops have reportedly killed more than killed 100 of Kony’s LRA rebels. The New Vision newspaper reported that Ugandan troops have freed 140 civilians abducted […]
TUESDAY, 1.30PM: THE South African Police Service is considering cutting 10000 jobs in terms of chief executive Meyer Kahn’s new strategic plan, which was slated in Parliament on Monday by the South African Police Union. But divisional commissioner Neels Steenkamp said Kahn has been misunderstood, and that the 10000 figure refers to natural attrition over […]
TUESDAY, 7.30PM: ARMED bandits in Angola are forcing people to become refugees within their own country, with almost 40000 having fled to towns, largely from the south-western province of Benguela, according to the United Nations mission in the country. It is likely that most such bandits are demobilised or recalcitrant members of Unita, the long-time […]
The South African pharmaceutical industry has been greatly expounded in the media in the past few months. The reason is not, however, as a result of the sector’s amazing rise in share prices, but as a consequence of frequent government intervention. The Johannesburg Stock Exchange pharmaceutical index has risen from a December 1997 low of […]
Frank Keating Cricket After their ultimately rootless and fidgety show in the West Indies, England’s batsmen this year could be forgiven a collective sigh of relief and a presumption that the home waters will be far less choppy. If so, they have another think coming. Allan Donald is pawing the earth at the end of […]
Gary Younge in Makeni The rebels came for Kulo Korban on Saturday night. They left him with a letter and took away three of his fingers and both ears. “I was asleep when I heard a knock on the door. Then four men kicked it down and dragged me away. They tied me to a […]
Swapna Prabhakaran The KwaZulu-Natal Department of Health announced an “inadequate” health budget for 1998/99 this week, sparking an outcry from hospital staff who predict it will have dire consequences for health services. Drastic cutbacks in services and staff have already been implemented at some provincial hospitals in preparation for the budget, which is R621-million short […]
The response this week from state health officials to our story that some of their former psychiatric patients have been killing people is instructive. Valkenberg hospital, which treated and released the patients, says such tragedies in other countries prompt, at the very least, a full-blown commission of inquiry. Not so here. The Western Cape provincial […]
Andrew Muchineripi Soccer Bafana Bafana coach Philippe Troussier is nothing if not unpredictable. While the media differed over which personnel he would deploy against Zambia at FNB Stadium on Wednesday night, there was consensus on a 3-5-2 formation. So what does the controversial “White Magician” do? He proves once again that he is le boss […]
James Wood A WIDOW FOR ONE YEAR by John Irving (Bloomsbury, R130) Realism gives John Irving a good name: he is lucky to hitch his wagon to it. Since The World According to Garp (1978), Irving has been praised for the “realism” of his novels – for their tossed plots, for the fat suffusions of […]
Norman Reynolds: A SECOND LOOK Public anger about the violence involved in the taxi wars is intensifying. In township after township people have met and marched, but to no avail: citizens remain the victims of an unfair, dangerous and badly organised industry. The government has promised to reform the “taxi industry”. It is trying to […]
David Newnham Runny nose, annoying cough and a sore throat that won’t go away? Time was when your doctor would recommend a good holiday. But today, the question “When were you last on an aeroplane?” is more likely to pinpoint the source of an infection than suggest a cure. The practice of recirculating cabin air […]
Jack Schofield tries his hand at palm reading to assess the likely winners and losers in a cut-throat hand-held computer market After a shaky start, pen-based computing is booming, led by the success of 3Com’s PalmPilot – an electronic organiser that fits into a shirt pocket or handbag – and competition is hotting up. Psion […]
Andy Capostagno Rugby Ian McIntosh is one of the nicest men I know. He has one Achilles heel. Rugby. He is so passionate about rugby it makes him ill. At King’s Park in Durban he sits two boxes down from the commentators with his brains trust of Hugh Reece-Edwards and Craig Jamieson. Thus ensconced he […]
Sarah Boseley and Tim Radford Cancer is one of the world’s biggest killers. It is a stealthy predator, corrupting the cells of a healthy body, doing damage and hastening death without displaying, for a long while, any outward sign. The treatment is unpleasant and the outcome uncertain. Nobody can be sure they will not fall […]
Ferial Haffajee ‘We are not going to eradicate poverty in a decade,” says Minister of Welfare Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi. It’s a very new song she is singing. Fraser-Moleketi is the young minister responsible for breathing life into what used to be a “by-the-way” ministry run by the National Party’s Abie Williams. “This is a powerful ministry. […]
Janet Smith A trample of running girls, sandals unbuttoned and skirts pleated around them, grin and point at the silver and blue machine. They’re caught in its shimmering breeze as they stop at the fence, put their hands to their brows and start chattering like birds. The firemen laugh lazily together at the corner of […]
Swapna Prabhakaran Race relations among advocates in KwaZulu-Natal have deteriorated to the brink of segregation, with disgruntled black members of the Society of Advocates of Natal forming an association to protect their interests. Thirty-two black advocates from Durban recently attended a blacks- only meeting and formed the new association, which aims to work within the […]