Stephen Ellis THE international trade in illegal drugs is worth $400-billion a year, according to the United Nations, making it the world’s second-biggest trade after oil. A successful drug-smuggling enterprise, like one of the big South American syndicates, has a bigger annual turnover than half of the world’s governments. Drug profits on this scale are […]
Lizeka Mda recently discovered that South Africa’s ambassador to the United States is a consummate salesman WAYZATA is a picture postcard pretty town some 30 minutes south of Minneapolis and St Paul, Minnesota, with a population of about 3 000. On this Saturday afternoon, the weather is perfect for the northern hemisphere June – balmy […]
FRIDAY, 1.30PM: MICHAU WARRIORS’ case against the Premier Soccer League disciplinary committee was on Wednesday night dismissed after an arbitration hearing in Johannesburg. Warriors’ lodged an appeal against the PSL, after the League committee ruled in favour of AmaZulu earlier this month, awarding them two points from their drawn match against Umtata Bush Bucks. Premier […]
The shark is well-known as a dangerous and efficient killer. But its full nature is not understood, writes Ellen Bartlett FOR all the exposure it gets every time it bites or kills someone, the great white shark is a poorly understood animal, maligned in science and fiction alike as an evil but mindless man-eater. Perhaps […]
FRIDAY, 11.00AM RANDGOLD-managed East Rand Proprietary Mine is is on the brink of closure as the falling gold price and lower than expected gold yields push the embattled producer to its knees. The mine, once one of the largest and most profitable in the world, currently employs 4 500 people. Although ERPM is managed by […]
A joint venture between Zamani and Templeton seeks to ensure skills transference in portfolio management, reportsMadeleine Wackernagel BLACK economic empowerment deals in the financial services sector are not unusual, but one involving a foreign company and a purely focused asset management venture is a first. Together, Franklin Templeton Group, via its Templeton arm, and Zamani […]
In her letters – auctioned this month by Sotheby’s – the late Patricia Highsmith is revealed as a tough, sometimes bigoted woman, writes Sarah Boseley CRIME novelist Patricia Highsmith was a semi-recluse from about 1970. She was very private in her Swiss home, having settled in Europe, which loved her amoral heroes whose escape from […]
Joe Seremane, whose brother was killed by the ANC in the infamous Quatro camp, is determined to discover the truth behind his murder. Peta Thornycroft reports AN African National Congress leader accused of torturing the brother of chief land claims commissioner Joe Seremane in the infamous Quatro detention camp has been identified as Gabriel Mthunzi […]
Gustav Thiel HENNIE MARAIS, Western Cape director of the South African Narcotics Bureau, is resigned to his officers doing little more than watching the drugs coming into the city, and occasionally checking the flow. They no longer bother with dagga, or even with releasing information about their successes in drug convictions. “There are 100 000 […]
Glynis O’Hara IF you switch on your radio and think you’re hearing Celine Dion singing Unbreak My Heart in Zulu, you won’t be far wrong. It is Unbreak My Heart in Zulu, dubbed Khululua Inhliziyo Yami, but instead of Celine belting it out, it’s Faith Kekana. A long-time music stalwart, she’s done backing vocals for […]
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FRIDAY, 1.30PM: SOUTH AFRICA’S John Bland leads the Senior British Open after the first round on Wednesday at Royal Portush in Northern Ireland. Bland fired a six-under-par 66 to take the lead. “I played good, drove beautifully, but I’m just happy to be playing,” he said. Bland is two strokes ahead of compatriot Gary Player, […]
Nicholas Whittaker in London THAT Mr Polaroid has a lot to answer for. Picture this muddy snap, for instance, of a naked man on a hotel bed. Passing behind his knees and around the back of his neck, a doubled-up inner tube trusses him into a human hoop, head tucked well down towards his groin. […]
The man who `can’t show mercy’ WILLIAM MAKGOBA was probably born arrogant. He is proud of this natural trait, which he sometimes refers to as self-confidence or self-assurance. It’s not his fault. He knows he’s intelligent and sees no point in hiding it. The problem is: he likes to ram it up other people’s noses. […]
THURSDAY, 5.00PM ZIMBABWEAN Congress of Trade Unions president Gibson Sibanda has castigated the government for high budget deficit, saying it is a major contributor to workers’ suffering through high interest rates and inflation levels. “The biggest problem in this country is the budget deficit, which is causing high inflation, which is the worker’s enemy number […]
FRIDAY, 11.00AM ANGLO American Corporation’s gold division saw its mines producing a solid aggregate performenace in the June quarter, with production slightly up and capital expenditure on new projects up 16%. Despite the difficult conditions in the gold market, group aggregate taxed profit was up to R396-million from R357-million in the March quarter. However, available […]
WITH less than two years to go before South Africa’s second democratic elections, the murder of five African National Congress members including two elected councillors in Richmond is a threat to more than just peace in the Natal Midlands. It is proof that sinister forces bent on subverting democracy are still active in South Africa, […]
Angella Johnson SHE was banned earlier this year from visiting British prisons amid accusations that she had nearly provoked a riot. In South Africa she is accused of obstructing attempts by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to interview a former member of Winnie Madikizela-Mandela’s notorious football team about the murder of “Stompie” Seipei, and the […]
THEATRE: Suzy Bell IT’S more likely the word according to Ngema and the gospel, than the word according to Steve Biko, in Mbongeni Ngema’s latest three-hour musical Maria-Maria!.The writer, director and composer claims is South Africa’s first and only full gospel musical. He also says it’s the best musical he’s ever written. Well the disciples […]
BRENDA ATKINSON reviews three important exhibitions, by Jo Ractliffe, Terry Kurgan and Abrie Fourie, currently on show in Gauteng IN one of her poems, Margaret Atwood writes, “the true story lies among the other stories”. Two solo shows at the Goodman Gallery meet between the lines of this statement, their deceptive softness couching the truth, […]
The truth commission’s examination of the media should not disintegrate into squabbling over old grudges, writes Rex Gibson THE trouble with scoring points is that the exercise can become … well, pointless. Ken Owen’s account of his running battle with one-time Press Council chairman Oscar Galgut (Mail & Guardian, July 18 to 24) was marvellously […]
premiership row Wally Mbhele THE blazing row between the African National Congress and its alliance partners over the appointment of Gauteng Premier Tokyo Sexwale’s successor could sweep into the party’s crucial December conference. Sexwale moved this week to douse the row, which has threatened to split communists and non-communists in the province. But some ANC […]
Ryk Neethling is swimming faster – and making his turns quicker – since he took up a scholarship at an American college SWIMMING: Julian Drew LIKE a long line of South African swimmers before him, Ryk Neethling headed off to America last August on a sports scholarship. But the 19-year-old from Bloemfontein has achieved something […]
EVIDENCE of the fascination sharks can exert on humans can be found in cyberspace, where a number of sites are dedicated to them. South Africa’s own is, of course, the site of the Natal Sharks Board, at http://goofy.iafrica.com/carch/ (carch being short for Carcharodon, the creatures’ Latin name). The board supplies statistics and research information, as […]
FRIDAY, 3.00PM THE Organisation of African Unity has fired former Zimbabwean president Canaan Banana, who is facing a series of sex-crimes charges, from his job as special peace envoy to Liberia, the Zimbabwean Financial Gazette reported on Friday. The magazine quoted OAU secretary general Salim Ahmed Salim as saying “there is no more role for […]
Barbara Ludman JOSEPH SEREMANE sat with the audience all day on Tuesday during truth commission hearings at the Old Fort, the former prison in Hillbrow. The commission was running well behind schedule, but still Seremane, the chief land claims commissioner, sat hour after hour, a spare, dignified figure, his back barely touching the back of […]
I, Goitseone Gordon Moshoeu, generally known in the African National Congress as Godfrey Pule and particularly known amongst members of the MK June 16 Detachment as Grenade, hereby wishes to give an account of the terrible plight that befell Timothy “Chief” Seremane, popularly known as Mahamba amongst both the ANC in general and specifically MK. […]
Thanks to Charles Taylor and Nigeria’s `peacemakers’, the election could herald a gangster state in Liberia, argues Stephen Ellis LIBERIA has had its first presidential election since the massively rigged 1985 poll, which many Liberians see as a main cause of the war which lasted from 1989 to earlier this year. The fighting may now […]
Focus on drugs: The police don’t bother with dagga; they can’t even cope with the trade in hard drugs Franco Fracassi and Laura Evans FOR the people who run South Africa’s burgeoning drugs trade, the forces of law and order represent, at best, a slight inconvenience. In Johannesburg, Cape Town or Durban, the story is […]
FINE ART: Hazel Friedman The good folk of Bellville are in such a froth over a controversial art exhibition recently on display in the suburb’s public library that they have caused it to close prematurely. The show gave rise to cries of blasphemy and pornography because it featured – among other “obscenities” – penises and […]
An unholy alliance between tycoons and trade unionists in Hong Kong seems to be driven by Beijing. Andrew Higgins in Hong Kong reports TAM YIU-CHUNG, a former department store window dresser who now sits in the inner circle of Hong Kong’s new elite, went to the London School of Economics to study trade unions just […]
FRIDAY, 1.30PM: OLYMPIC silver medallist Hezekiel Sepeng won the 800m event at an international meeting at Rheede in Germany on Wednesday and showed he is recovering from the hamstring injury that threatened his participation in the World Championships in Athens next month. Wednesday’s race was a fitness test for Sepeng, who recently underwent intensive physiotherapy […]