Phola Park’s economy Sechaba ka’Nkosi A housing project that started as part of the Reconstruction and Development Programme in the one-time battlefield of Phola Park on the East Rand is paying dividends to the community. The project – a joint venture between low-cost housing contractors Ecodev, the Gauteng Department of Housing and Land Affairs and […]
David Cesarani ISRAEL: A HISTORY by Martin Gilbert (Doubleday, R219,95) Israel’s 50th birthday celebrations are in disarray, a muddle produced by fiscal stringency and ideological confusion. Plans for costly, symbolic events have been scrapped amidst popular apathy. According to the Jerusalem Report, “There’s little sense of unity, and not really much agreement on what it […]
Greg Bowes CD of the week The titles of the three Ninja Cuts compilations from Britain’s inspired weird-beat label Ninja Tune, are always extraordinarily tongue-twisting. Funkjazztical Tricknology, Flexistentialism, and now Ninja Cuts III: Funkungfusion (Ninja Cuts), the latest round-up of revolutionary sounds from their roster. Headed up by sonic sorcerers Coldcut, who were once responsible […]
Wonder Hlongwa Police have been blamed for the latest spate of taxi wars in Gauteng, which has claimed 20 lives in the past two weeks. Both the provincial transport department and taxi organisations say police either turn a blind eye to taxi-related crime or are involved in the crimes themselves. In the past two weeks, […]
Tracy Murinik On show in Cape Town “Everything is art,” I am informed as I sit down for the interview. Well, that should leave impotent and irrelevant those irksome and defensive little retorts of “but is it art?” that often riddle commentary around work that cannot be mounted flush against a wall. “Even when you […]
Ed O’Loughlin Despite lurid reports to the contrary, the pursuit of the civil war in Sierra Leone has had little to do with British mercenaries, illegally imported Bulgarian weapons, Executive Outcomes, Foreign Office intrigue or the crew of HMS Cornwall. Whatever the British government may or may not have known about the activities of the […]
FRIDAY: 4.00PM PRESIDENT Nelson Mandela will only consider intervening in the violence-torn taxi industry if Transport Minister Mac Maharaj requests his assistance, presidential aide Parks Mankahlana said on Friday. Even then, Mankahlana said, National Taxi Drivers’ Organisation’s demands that Mandela declare a state of emergency in the industry are impractical, as the industry does not […]
Mercedes Sayagues Controversial American entrepreneur James Blanchard has set his sights on including parts of the famed Inhaca island in his huge Mozambican theme park, despite the fact that he has yet to deliver on his grandiose scheme. Blanchard has asked the Maputo municipal council for a 276ha concession in Ponta Torres, the south-eastern peninsula […]
Mark Tran `People laughed at us when we told them that Yahoo! would be worth more than Netscape – `they’re just a bunch of kids’, we were told,” recalls Andrew Nibley, president of Reuters New-Media, a subsidiary of the British news group created in 1994 to position the company for the Internet age. Nibley, who […]
Neil Manthorp Cricket Few tours begin with such mutual agreement on the key factors; the turning point, if you like, has been firmly decided upon, even though the tour-bus has hardly left its London garage. The four most talked-about men since South Africa arrived have been Allan Donald, Shaun Pollock, Alec Stewart and Michael Atherton. […]
Melvyn Minnaar Potable pleasures Drinking and flying is not on. Even if you’re not piloting the long-haul Boeing, alcohol indulgence is bad for your body. The hours spent physically static and confined to a seat in a pressurised cabin, exposed to the ensuing dehydration, is not the recommended condition for a cocktail party, never mind […]
South African judges blew millions on Mercedes, BMWs and Volvos, writes Andy Duffy South African judges spent more than R5-million of taxpayers’ money on luxury new cars last year. Most of the money came from the Department of Justice, months before the cash- crunch that forced it to halt overtime pay to its advocates and […]
THURSDAY, 6.30PM: THE Presidential Review Commission on Thursday said in a report that it appears the leadership of the Northen Province and the Eastern Cape have been bogged down by the enormity of the challenges facing their provinces. The PRC also admitted that the problems may be much more complex than they had appeared at […]
THURSDAY, 9.15AM: THE National Sports Council lifted the ban on international rugby tours to South Africa amid scenes of jubilation in Johannesburg on Wednesday evening. After lengthy meetings with the South African Rugby Football Union’s executive and the 14 provincial rugby unions, the NSC announced that proposed tours by England, Wales and Ireland will go […]
THURSDAY, 11.00AM: THE National Party lost 81% of its 1995 vote to lose 1419-386 to the Democratic Party in the Brakpan by-election on Wednesday. The winning candidate was the DP’s Shelly Loe, who defeated the NP’s Malcolm Laing in a 31% poll. On Tuesday, the DP won a clear victory in former NP bastion Bergvliet/Meadowridge […]
TUESDAY, 7.00PM: THE Council for Nuclear Safety is worried by rapid development near Cape Town’s Koeberg Nuclear Power Station, and says it must be brought under control. Further development could create enormous difficulties should an emergency evacuation of Koeberg ever become necessary, council general manager Jeff Leaver told the Minerals and Energy parlimentary committee on […]
Efforts to ensure fair play in sports have not proved an outstanding success, says John Duncan It is one of the biggest contests in world sport: the prize for winning, and the cost of taking part, are measured in millions of dollars. But it takes place not on a track or in a swimming pool […]
Philip French Movie of the week The cinema has done quite well by Oscar Wilde’s work. There have been versions of Lady Windermere’s Fan by Ernst Lubitsch and Otto Preminger; a plush Alexander Korda film of An Ideal Husband; a superbly cast The Importance of Being Ernest with Edith Evans’s definitive Lady Bracknell; Albert Lewin’s […]
The new Afrikaans TV thriller Die Vierde Kabinet gives Gys de Villiers another leading role. Janet Smith discovers fame hasn’t necessarily meant fortune Two old Cessnas, a panel van and a Kombi make up the inventory of Logistic Inc, a company fictionalised into unsuspecting political life by Afrikaans TV thriller maestro Jan Scholtz in his […]
Andrew Muchineripi Soccer Today is D-day for the Bafana Bafana World Cup hopefuls as national coach Philippe Troussier trims his squad to 26 footballers with four more to drop out before the tournament begins. The squad faces friendlies against Zambia at FNB Stadium on May 20 and twice world champions Argentina in Buenos Aires five […]
Suzy Bell An advert running in the local Durban newspapers has caused quite a stir among some verkrampte readers, who have deemed it perverted and pornographic. It may be vaguely shocking or clichd titillation, but it’s also an artistic image. Two of the Fantastic Flying Fish dancers are surrounded by a soft pink glow, created […]
Stefaans Brmmer Gauteng Premier Mathole Motshekga shares a business empire with an apartheid-era military intelligence agent who was also a key backer in Motshekga’s bitterly contested campaign last year for the provincial throne. Abel Rudman’s military intelligence cover was blown in 1991 when the then Weekly Mail revealed that an anti-African National Congress newspaper he […]
living Expelled ANCleader Sifiso Nkabinde walks free on 18 charges of murder and the question is posed: who should be afraid this time? Ann Eveleth reports More than a dozen people died in KwaZulu-Natal hot spots within days of the acquittal of political wildcard Sifiso Nkabinde last Thursday. None of the deaths – one in […]
As the Internet spreads like wildfire across the African continent, Mike Jensen assesses our relative connectivity levels The Internet has spread rapidly through Africa over the last 18 months. In May 1996 only 16 countries had full Internet access. Now more than three- quarters of the capital cities in Africa are online – 44 of […]
Suzy Bell `Have you heard there’s a female Muslim artist in Durban making porn art?” I heard someone say. So I scooted off to the University of Durban-Westville to meet the Durban arts graduate, Asiya Swaleh. The artist was, at first, quite measured in her response. “People may come to my exhibition purely to be […]
Charl BlignautOn stage in Johannesburg There is a bizarre moment in the Johannesburg Market Theatre/Stockholm Stadtsteater co-production of August Strindberg’s 1901 tragi-comedy Dance of Death when the subtle, classic lighting design suddenly spins out of orbit and transforms the stage into a discotheque, John Kani’s cantankerous Captain thrusting his arm in the air like a […]
Tony Mechin As the leaders of the Zimbabwean Internet industry entered the Harare International conference centre in January for the opening of Internet@frica98, the country’s first Internet show, looming in their minds was the thought that the show billed as the “biggest Internet, intranet, cyber conference and exhibition in Southern Africa” was going to be […]
The University of Pretoria’s celebrated Van Tilburg collection may have been stolen from Dutch Jews, writes Bart Luirink In 1951 Jacob van Tilburg, a Dutch art collector, managed to transfer 91 cases with valuable art pieces to South Africa – a remarkable effort for somebody who, three years earlier, had been sentenced for collaboration with […]
Special Mail &Guardian supplement on Internet connectivity in Africa Developing Africa’s information economy is of paramount importance, writes David Shapshak The Internet will finally take off in Africa in 1998. But taking the information age into the continent, which dramatically lacks the infrastructure needed for conveying the Internet and normal telecommunications, may prove to be […]
Greg Bowes Dance music tour In what promises to be one of the dance events of the year, a veritable who’s who of commercial and underground dance musicians and DJs have been assembled for this year’s Camel Experience. The series of parties – this year subtitled, for reasons unknown, Quadropheria – begins in Cape Town […]
Loet Douwes Dekker Celebrations in recent weeks commemorating the democratic elections and Workers’ Day highlighted South Africa’s work to ensure new constitutional rights take effect in practice. In the workplace, this means defining new priorities and guidelines, while taking cognisance of the implications of South Africa having rejoined the International Labour Organisation and the World […]
house World-renowned palaeo-anthropologist Professor Phillip Tobias discusses why it would be disastrous to build a casino near Sterkfontein Valley Since the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation’s (Unesco) general conference adopted a convention on the protection of the world’s cultural and natural heritage on November 16 1972, 506 properties worldwide have been inscribed on […]