Andy Capostagno : Rugby Maybe he knew. Maybe he knew that even he couldn’t improve upon 74-28 and that therefore retirement was the most sensible option. Sean Fitzpatrick was probably sitting in the stands at Eden Park on Sunday watching his beloved Auckland Blues deconstruct the Western Stormers and he probably thought, hell, I can’t […]
WHO IS . . . GERALD MORKEL? Gerald Morkel, the man who will replace Hernus Kriel as premier of the Western Cape on May 11, is best described as a politician who has risen without trace. A stranger to controversy, one could say his very blandness ensured the job would be his. It was a […]
THURSDAY, 8.30AM: SIPHIWE NYANDA, former chief of staff of Umkhonto weSizwe, is to take over as chief of the SA Defence Force in June, following the resignation of General Georg Meiring. Nyanda, who will be promoted to full general, faces the mammoth task of uniting white and black soldiers who, until 1994, were bitter foes. […]
WEDNESDAY, 5.00PM THE African National Congress internal report on corruption, mismanagement and spying allegations against Gauteng Premier Mathole Motshekga has cleared him on all counts. ANC secretary-general Kgalema Motlanthe told a press conference on Wednesday afternoon that the commission found there was nothing in the evidence placed before it to substantiate allegations of dishonest or […]
WEDNESDAY, 1.30PM: ENROLMENTS at South African tertiary institutions have dropped some 21% this year compared to last year, with former “bush universities” worst hit, while student numbers at traditionally white universities actually rose over the same period. The University of Zululand registered a 21% fall in registration, the University of the North an 18% drop, […]
TUESDAY, 12.00NOON: THE Cabinet is set to discuss a series of proposed “legacy projects” intended to redress the portrayal of South Africa’s history, with a Freedom Park as the flagship project. The Freedom Park will focus on the themes of democracy, nation-building and the liberation struggle, and will house monuments, museums and galleries to the […]
Andy Capostagno Rugby Not that last year’s Super 12 left South African teams with any reasons for complacency, but if anyone thought that the new regional system was a fast track to success they had better think again. Two- thirds of the way through the 1998 Super 12 and there are three South African teams […]
Tangeni Amupadhi Like President Nelson Mandela, Gaaitsiwe “Conka” Rakuba is a veteran prisoner who celebrated 27 Christmases behind bars. But he was jailed for different reasons. Rakuba (42) is a career prisoner: he first went to jail in 1970 and since then hadn’t spent more than three months “outside”, until his release last year. This […]
Andy Duffy A senior academic at the University of the Witwatersrand is poised to resign over his involvement in a publicly listed technology company. Professor Hanoch Neishlos, chair of the computer science department at Wits, and his wife own shares in the company that are currently worth more than R100-million. The company’s main product is […]
Tim Radford meets the Princeton professor whose warning on human genetic engineering has drawn fire from critics but growing acceptance from scientists Watch out for Homo proteus, the species that changes its own shape. Last month Cambridge physicist Stephen Hawking told President Bill Clinton – at a millennium lecture at the White House – that […]
Mungo Soggot The taxpayer’s bill for Public Protector Selby Baqwa’s exploration of Minister of Minerals and Energy Penuell Maduna’s possible slander of the auditor general is on track to outstrip the corruption watchdog’s total annual budget of R7,5-million. At least five legal teams are due to appear before Baqwa’s investigation, which should run for at […]
Once a vibrant part of the Soweto arts scene, the Funda Centre has had to adapt. Swapna Prabhakaran finds out how It is a sad fact that Soweto’s Funda Centre is better known internationally than it is in Johannesburg. The once-famous centre for literacy and the arts has transformed in the Nineties to become a […]
The discovery of vast stretches of water between the stars has raised new questions about the origins of life on Earth, writes Tim Radford European scientists, using an ultra-cold orbiting telescope, have discovered unimaginable volumes of water in the space between the stars. The discovery raises new questions about life elsewhere in the universe -and […]
Ferial Haffajee Here’s the dream: industrial development zones (IDZ) will bring prosperity to some of the country’s poorest areas, where new industries will fuel the renaissance of the economy as exports grow. An advanced labour relations system will solve disputes in record time as thousands of workers will be trained to service new industries. Here’s […]
Dan Glaister in London It was, to borrow a phrase, better late than never: 66 years after it was originally commissioned and 64 years after his death, Elgar’s unfinished Symphony No 3 received its world premire. The work, finished – or “elaborated upon” – by the composer Anthony Payne, received an ovation from a packed […]
Claire Robertson Jacques Pauw once wrote of Ferdi Barnard that his head “hopped like a rubber ball on his broad shoulders” while he smoked a crack cocaine pipe and confessed to killing Dr David Webster. That was some three years ago, when Barnard – a convicted killer, former narcotics policeman and dirty-tricks operative – was […]
The Discovery Channel will show films made by South Africans in its upcoming South African Visions series, reports Janet Smith Isicathamiya is not only about singing in perfect harmony, wearing white gloves and a three-piece suit. It is also about heartbreak and love and survival, as viewers in the process of re-educating themselves about this […]
South African and Mozambican investigators have failed to contact a potentially crucial witness in the McBride affair, writes Mungo Soggot A close associate of Robert McBride, who has offered information to counter allegations that the foreign affairs official was smuggling weapons in Mozambique, has still to be contacted by Mozambican and South African authorities. As […]
The Durban Designer Emporium’s first exhibition installation was a facelift for fashion and performance art, writes Suzy Bell `Durban’s sub-culture needs to be tickled, then scratched,” hissed the chick with a live goldfish swishing about her liquid handbag. The blood still hasn’t quite drained from the flush of it all, but the gouges, at least, […]
Appearance masked disappearance and death in Stalin’s Soviet Union. Nothing was how it seemed. Nigel Fountain reports on the photos that hid dirty deeds One photograph in The Commissar Vanishes is of two men playing chess in the sunshine of Capri. It is April 1908. Alexander Bogdanov, later to found the Soviet Union’s first blood […]
Andrew Muchineripi Soccer Who will wear the black, white, green and gold of Bafana Bafana when they begin their World Cup Group C programme against host nation France in Marseille on June 12? It a question that is much easier to pose than answer, because under fiery French coach Philippe Troussier, no one is certain […]
FRIDAY, 8.30AM: LOW-KEY Gerald Morkel became the most powerful coloured person in the National Party when he defeated his flamboyant opponent Peter Marais on Thursday night to become party leader in the Western Cape, the last remaining NP stronghold. But Morkel’s first few hours of power gave him little chance to savour his success: First, […]
Angella Johnson Five-year-old Magriet is practising her ballet steps, twirling around the cane furniture in her living room, watched by loving parent Gertruida Greyling, and Hermien Oosthuizen. The Brakpan lesbian couple celebrated a historic court decision this week when a judge ruled that their sexual proclivities do not preclude them from bringing up a child. […]
Pallo Jordan: CROSSFIRE The black (African, Indian and coloured) political movements that pioneered the democratic struggle were initially led by an educated elite who had embraced democracy and modernism as universal visions. “Modernism” has been used in two senses, one technological, the other socio-political. Its technological dimension assumed humanity would incrementally attain mastery over nature […]
Suzy Bell Six guitarists, all fluent in French – yet decidedly South African. Doctors, artists, teachers, a lawyer and a sailor – a Durban writers’ circle. Over a year, every two weeks, they met in caf,s, restaurants and private homes to mull over words, sip whisky, write and rewrite until they created Unwrapped – irreverent […]
Ann Eveleth A government probe into job reservation at a private construction giant blamed a single official for racist hiring practices, but ignored the role of three managing directors when it effectively exonerated the company. Thuso Ramaema, the department chief director tasked by Minister of Water Affairs and Forestry Kader Asmal to probe allegations of […]
Hermann Wittenberg On show in Cape Town If you’ve recently seen too many clever installations, provocative experimental exhibitions or deeply relevant conceptual art, take a look at Till Mayer’s remarkable sculptural works at Cape Town’s Mau Mau Gallery. Vital Functions is an exhibition of wooden sculptures which not only display an unusual technical virtuosity but […]
General Sani Abacha is nothing if not blatant. Nigeria’s military ruler is not pussyfooting around like some other former-military- leaders-turned-civilian-presidents who organised elaborate elections with the trappings, if not the substance, of democracy. Abacha banned all political parties after seizing power in 1993. He subsequently legalised five new parties, all of which just happened to […]
Janet Smith Pianistically, Paul Hanmer is beautiful. His music – folkloric, occasionally proletarian, always warm and real – is not a private dominion or a place where culture is combat. His music, as experienced on his celebrated Sheer Sound debut album Trains to Taung, has reached into the South African jazz community like a hand […]
Mukoni T Ratshitanga The University of Zululand – one of the hardest hit by government subsidy cuts and student debt – spent more than R1,7-million on curtains in three years. However, university representative Carl de Villiers said this week a preliminary report on the linen spending spree “does not show any criminal activity”. The probe […]
The editor of Zimbabwe’s main daily newspaper, a nephew of President Robert Mugabe, collapsed in his office and died of a heart attack on Tuesday. Charles Chikerema (59) an avowed Stalinist who criticised white Zimbabweans through the state-controlled press, died after serving only nine weeks as the editor of the Herald newspaper. It was the […]
Mail & Guardian reporter With foreign donor funding drying up, South Africa’s non-governmental organisations and their donors this week formed an agency to devise creative means to make them financially sustainable. The South African NGO Coalition (Sangoco), the South African Grantmakers Association (Saga) and the United Kingdom’s Charities Aid Foundation joined hands to set up […]