MONDAY, 8.00AM GAUTENG health MEC Amos Masondo is leading the race for the provincial premiership, after winning the support of the ANC, the communist party, Cosatu and the SA National Civics Organisation at a marathon seven hour meeting yesterday (Sunday). Trailing Masondo is deputy provincial chairman Mathole Motshekga, supported by the ANC Youth League and […]
MONDAY, 11.00AM THE Johannesburg Stock Exchange’s all gold index followed bullion’s latest recovery on Friday, picking up 27,7 points to close at 992 (after an intraday high of 1 005,1) as gold rallied $4,80 to $324,20/oz. Analysts, however, remain cautious about gold’s fortunes, saying the situation is nothing to get excited about, and a rally […]
THESE considerately crafted little numbers come from Waldeck Studios – a 3-D design company founded by artist Ian Waldeck. The company designs and crafts anything from sculptural objects to architectural components, to the odd pair of handcuffs. These particular toys were commissioned, says Waldeck, by a friend in engineering, who asked him to assemble something […]
THE United States helped train the troops who spearheaded the overthrow of Mobutu Seso Seko. US defence and state department officials revealed this week that crack US troops had begun training the Rwandan army in 1994 – just after the rebellion which led to the ascent of that country’s Tutsi-dominated government. The Rwandan army went […]
Hazel Friedman `LIFE should not be cheap and love ain’t for free.” This is one of the messages behind the Lovers Plus commercial on SABC, South Africa’s first branded condom television ad. Filmed and produced in South Africa and flighted during prime time on SABC1 and 2 since June 23, the ad is the brainchild […]
listening The wind-up radio is finally available in SA after being produced for export only, reports Madeleine Wackernagel THE story of the wind-up radio is one of ironies. It took a South African company to realise its potential after its British inventor had no luck selling his idea in the rest of the world, but […]
FRIDAY, 10.50AM: The four rebel rugby unions who opposed the new Super-12 system accepted it on Thursday, ending the crisis in the competition. SA Rugby Football Union president Louis Luyt met the four unions’ presidents — Keith Parkinson of Natal, Harold Verster of Free State, Hentie Serfontein of Northern Transvaal and Ronnie Masson of Western […]
FINE ART: Brenda Atkinson TITUS MATIYANE stood in the middle of the gallery at a microphone, turned his lips into a pitifully squeaking trumpet, held a tune with his vocal chords and delivered a stinging parody of both South African national anthems. Knowledge to the Visitor opened at the Rembrandt van Rijn Gallery with a […]
Wally Mbhele A FORMER commander of Umkhonto weSizwe (MK) recently granted amnesty by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission allegedly tried to derail the amnesty applications of Jerry Richardson and other jailed members of the Mandela United Football Club. Yet Richardson, who is seeking amnesty for the murder of teenage activist “Stompie” Seipei and three other […]
LOOSE CANNON: Robert Kirby BOTH of my liberal friends have again gone into moral shock. This recent disaffection is no result of conventional stimuli. It has a more specific aetiology than the vaguely defined silts of the apartheid system. These two people are disturbed for very compact reasons. They have been watching and listening to […]
JEFF BENZIEN’s torture of former Umkhonto weSizwe guerrilla Peter Jacobs was, he said, “robust and very long”. “The normal interview with you carried on for quite a while … It was obvious you were playing for time. It was then that I resorted to using the wet bag on you,” Benzien told his amnesty hearing. […]
FRIDAY, 11.20AM: SOUTH AFRICAN and US Open champion Ernie Els struggled in the back nine and finished at 4-over 75 in the first round of the British Open on Thursday. Els said it was the toughest round he had ever played. “I played pretty well on the front line but then my start to the […]
The sound of scandal from the controversial Aids musical continues to reverberate around its creator Mbongeni Ngema. SUZY BELL reports NEW evidence has emerged in a fraud investigation into controversial director and playwright Mbongeni Ngema. The investigation concerns allegations, made in February, that Ngema used R3-million advanced to him from the R14,2-million spent on Sarafina […]
Muting the instruments Previous Grahamstown jazz festivals have usually been followed by one South African musician or another sounding off to the press. In the past, artists have had gripes about pay, conditions and programming. This year, you heard none of that; we can guarantee it. But the post-festival silence doesn’t mean that everything in […]
The EU is happy to sell its highly subsidised products to Africa but is less happy if Africa asks for a similar free- trade deal. Lynda Loxton outlines Alec Erwin’s battle TRADE and Industry Minister Alec Erwin left for Europe this week determined to persuade the European Union (EU) that any trade deal with South […]
FRIDAY, 11.00AM ABSA Bank, in its Quarterly Housing Review released on Thursday, says that house prices in SA declined by an average 3,7% in real terms during the first half of this year and, given high interest rates and high levels of household debt, the situation is not likely to improve. Another factor contributing to […]
Journalists in Somalia have to be wary … before publishing by photocopier. ALEX BELLOS reports from Mogadishu THE press in Britain is often referred to as the fourth estate. In Somalia – where uniquely there has been no government for six years – it is definitely the first. Mogadishu is an unlikely place to have […]
ATHLETICS:Julian Drew FOR Frits Potgieter it was never a matter of if but rather when he would break into the big time – and that moment arrived somewhat unceremoniously at a low key athletics meeting in Sheffield, England on Tuesday night. Potgieter added more than two metres to his previous personal best of 61.98m in […]
FIVE lucky readers of the M&G’s books pages are winners in our giveaway of Edmund White’s brand new novel, The Farewell Symphony, published by Chatto &Windus. They are:Rose Cohen, Killarney; YFrame, Riviera; RHLloyd, Botha’s Hill; Mahluli Mngadi, Seapoint; and Kopano Ratele, Rondebosch. Congratulations and happy reading -your books are on their way to you. Look […]
FRIDAY, 11.00AM: SOME 800 000 Liberian voters head for the polls on Saturday to choose a parliament and a president to govern Africa’s oldest republic, ravaged by a bitter seven-year civil war that has killed more than 150 000 people. A huge West African peacekeeping force from 10 nations has been stationed in Liberia since […]
Harry Berkowitz in New York GIANNI VERSACE, an Italian dressmaker’s son, grew up to be founder and chief designer of a half-billion-dollar fashion empire with hundreds of outlets around the world, a line of fragrances and plans to sell part of the company to the public next year. But can that Milan-based company continue to […]
Ken Barris RUDE SHELTERS by Robert Kirby (Jonathan Ball, R79,95) RUDE SHELTERS is a collection of Robert Kirby’s columns and articles that, judging by the content, span a three-year period from 1994 to 1996. It includes selections of his work as a television critic for The Star Tonight, satirical columns in the Sunday Times and […]
The truth commission will examine whether judges `dished out death sentences’ to shore up apartheid, writes Swapna Prabhakaran SOME of South Africa’s judges, including one working for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, will be called before the commission to defend apartheid-era decisions to send hundreds of people to the gallows. The issue of the death […]
Now that the lights have been turned off and the circus has left town, it’s time to take a stone-cold sober look at the 1997 Standard Bank 1997 Standard Bank National Arts Festival. What went down in G’town … Gwen Ansell AFRICAN music started to look like hot property at the Grahamstown Festival – but […]
Three white men with a briefcase of insurance policies are the leaders of a union at war with the NUM, writes Ferial Haffajee THE new union whose running battle with the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM)has claimed eight lives may have been set up as an elaborate insurance scam. The organisation, called Workers Mouthpeace, is […]
SOCCER: Andrew Muchineripi JUST one month after the leg-weary footballers of South Africa were given a long-overdue break, the call to action has been sounded for the annual Iwisa Charity Spectacular at FNB Stadium on Saturday. Title holders Kaizer Chiefs face Sundowns in the first semi-final at 10am, followed by Orlando Pirates and Moroka Swallows […]
FILMGOERS can sup at a feast of independent cinema playing for the next two weeks in Johannesburg, arriving in Durban on July 15 and in Cape Town on July 28. Here are some of the best: The Funeral (Abel Ferrara, 1996) This 1930s-set gangster pic finds fierce and furiously transgressive director Ferrara on strangely penitent […]
PRESIDENT Nelson Mandela chose to speak at the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies during his brief visit last week to the United Kingdom in order to make good his debt to religious leaders who had contributed to the struggle against apartheid.
FRIDAY, 1.00PM: SOUTH AFRICAN and International Boxing Federation champion Mbulelo Botile defends his title against American Tim Austin on Saturday night at the Nashville Arena. A victory for Botile will earn him a fight with International Boxing Federation and World Boxing Organisation champion Naseem “Prince” Hamed of Britain. Botile is reported to be in good […]
FINE ART: Hazel Friedman ARTISTS Clifford Charles and Samson Mnisi could hardly be blamed for wanting to throw a brick through the window of their exhibition site. That’s how frustrated they must feel about the general response to their show. Their exhibition, B(l)ack in Town, is currently on display on the recently vacated 13th floor […]
FRIDAY, 3.30PM The editor of the Kinshasa daily newspaper La Reference Plus has been interrogated by authorities in the Democratic Republic of Congo after the paper reported splits within the new regime. Andre Ipakala was released on Thursday, one day after being detained. He said he underwent a lengthy interrogation over the report on an […]
FRIDAY, 12.30PM FORMER British MP Emma Nicholson, who has been sheltering Katiza Cebekhulu, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela’s kidnapping co-accused who was abducted and carried to Zambia to prevent him testifying against Madikizela-Mandela, said this week in London that she is to travel to SA in September and offered an interview to the truth commission. Nicholson, who has […]