Gary Younge NIGERIAN art treasures are being looted from museums to supply an underground network of dealers, most of them based in London and New York. The multi-million pound trade, which contravenes a United Nations convention on the sale and smuggling of stolen artwork, has left some museums in the country virtually empty. The looting […]
negotiations Ferial Haffajee TOUGH talking will be the order of the day as crucial wage rounds involving South Africa’s biggest employers in the mining, motor, engineering and clothing sectors get under way. “It’s going to be a difficult year for negotiations,” predicts Jackie Kelly of Andrew Levy & Associates. In its most recent quarterly bulletin […]
position Mahmood Mamdani analyses why South African diplomacy failed in Congo SOUTH AFRICA emerging from apartheid is not the same as Congo emerging from Mobutuism. At least two political differences are worth noting. The South African transition was a compromise between forces for and against apartheid, the Congolese transition is marked by a military victory […]
FRIDAY, 12.00NOON: SOUTH AFRICA’s Trevor Wilkinson beat Geoff Davenport of Australia in an exciting match at the MacMed World Masters in Johannesburg on Thursday. Wilkinson won the semifinal 9-5, 8-10, 9-1, 9-10, 9-6, in a match plagued by bad decisions from referee Gordon Ashby. Wilkinson will play top-seed of the 35-39 division, Ashraf Hanafi of […]
KEITH RICHBURG’S article, “Thank God my ancestor got out” (May 16 to 22), appears as an interesting coincidence. The very same week, in my Afro-American poetry class, I have been explaining to my students why, in spite of lying at the bottom of the social heap for centuries, Afro-Americans would not countenance the idea of […]
Glynis O’Hara PAYOLA, long the battle of the music industry, reared its ugly head this week when Mike Edwards, former managing director of EMI South Africa, was quoted in the press as saying his company had actively participated in the system of paying for airplay. It’s long been said that it is rife, especially on […]
The mopane caterpillar is a dietary staple for many people – and a vital agent in keeping the veld healthy, writes Ellen Bartlett THE larva of Gonimbrasia belina, the emperor moth, is fat and spiny and mottled black and gray. It does not immediately spring to mind as food.But G belina, better known as the […]
Libby Young A NEW Web site is set to help academics and teachers source new teaching material and textbooks from around the world. PubText’s plans could revolutionise academic publishing, giving publishers the chance to market their wares on a global scale and enabling teachers to choose from a much wider variety of books. The PubText […]
The 50th Cannes film festival was one of the least memorable in years. DEREK MALCOLM loved and loathed the hype, and the line-up of films SYLVESTER STALLONE wished it could go on for ever. Shock-jock Howard Stern said, surveying the scene, “And they think I’m weird!” Most of the rest of us packed up to […]
Madeleine Wackernagel in Harare AMID all the rhetoric of new visions and a brighter future, one message came through loud and clear at this year’s Southern Africa Economic Summit, hosted by the World Economic Forum (WEF): if the Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries are serious about attracting foreign investment, the only choice is openness […]
The imminent sale of Sun Air has brought together many black businesses. Stuart Hess looks at who is bidding BLACK economic empowerment is taking to the skies in more ways than one. Four consortiums headed by black businesses comprise half the companies bidding for Sun Air, the next parastatal up for sale. Tenders for the […]
FRIDAY, 3.00PM INDEPENDENT Broadcasting Authority co-chairman Peter de Klerk, who resigned last week in a financial scandal, misled Parliament’s public accounts committee over double claims for expenses on an overseas trip, and may be liable for prosecution for fraud. The auditor general’s report on financial irregularities in the IBA said that on a United States […]
FRIDAY, 11.00AM: AMANDA COETZER is still on a roll at the Women’s Tennis Association Strasbourg Open. She beat Naoko Kijimuta of Japan 6-2, 6-3 in the quarterfinals on Thursday, and will come up against top seed Steffi Graf in the next match. Coetzer demolished Graf at the German Open last week 6-0, 6-1 and has […]
FRIDAY, 10.30AM PEPSICO International, which re-entered the SA market amid much fanfare three years ago, has applied for the voluntary liquidation of its local bottler New Age Beverages. The liquidation application has been confirmed by NAB. The company has been experiencing cashflow problems for some time, and had approached the bloc of African-American shareholders who […]
Fiona Macleod I SPEAK OF AFRICA: THE STORY OF LONDOLOZI GAME RESERVE by Shan Varty and Molly Buchanan (Londolozi Publishers, R300) THE ENVIRONMENTAL FUNDING GUIDE by Jill Ritchie (Papillon Press, R100) WHY would anyone want to pay R300 for the eulogy to the Varty dynasty in I Speak of Africa? Firstly, because the Vartys have […]
Mungo Soggot THE probe into the state’s oil trading arm, the Strategic Fuel Fund, is now expected to be finished by the middle of next month after hitting some delays. The investigation’s preliminary findings in late March led to the suspension of the fund’s boss, Kobus van Zyl. Don Mkhwanazi, chairman of the Central Energy […]
FRIDAY, 4.00PM THE Mouthpiece Workers’ Union, which was behind the crippling strike at Anglo American Platinum Mines last year, on Thursday aligned itself with expelled ANC former minister Bantu Holomisa’s National Consultative Forum. On Thursday the union, which has formally applied for registration with the labour department, shared a platform with Holomisa at a Rustenburg […]
Angella Johnson SIPHO MASEKO, senior lecturer in political science at the University of the Western Cape, was not quite as kind to the opposition parties as they were to themselves – he consistently gave them lower scores for their performance than the scores the parties thought they deserved. But he and the Democratic Party were […]
IT is now three weeks since the Mail & Guardian disclosed the horrific details of the report compiled by Zimbabwe’s Truth and Justice Commission on the atrocities in Matabeleland. The only response has come from Robert Mugabe, who denounced those responsible for the report as “mischief- makers” and declared: “If we dig up history then […]
There is one quarter from which the ANC does want criticism: the opposition parties. But this isn’t happening, writes Marion Edmunds THE African National Congress believes that South Africa’s collective opposition is doing a terrible job. President Nelson Mandela’s director of communications, Joel Netshitenzhe, argued this week that opposition parties had reduced their focus to […]
The new-look SABC TV News has come in for a lot of flak. Joe Thloloe answers some of the criticisms SOME institutions in this country are thrashing about in the throes of transformation away from the public glare. Others, like the SABC and its Television News, are scrutinised and everybody throws in comment and advice. […]
Sactwu has shown that capitalist investment can work not only for workers, but for their children too. Ferial Haffajee reports SCORES of clothing workers’ children graced this week’s launch of a clothing union’s bursary fund: among them was one who has done particularly well. Finance Minister Trevor Manuel introduced himself as “the son of a […]
THURSDAY, 4.00PM THE Director General of Housing, Billy Cobbett, has been fired after asking the auditor general to investigate the R185-million Mpumalanga Housing Project, the largest yet under the government’s housing subsidy scheme. In a hastily called press conference on Thursday afternoon, Housing Minister Sankie Mthembi-Mahanyele denied Cobbett had been fired, saying he had asked […]
Taking on England on their hometurf is a formidable task for Bafana Bafana who have yet to prove that they can win away matches SOCCER: Andrew Muchineripi THE South African national soccer team should know a lot more about itself come Saturday night after facing England in a friendly promising to attract a near- capacity […]
BRENDA ATKINSON suggests that beastly is in the eye of the beholder FRENCH librarian and pornographer Georges Batailles, whose literary works were littered with corpses, sperm, eyeballs and the odd boiled egg, sought repeatedly to prove his own dictum that there is no prohibition that cannot be transgressed. Purity and Danger, curated by Penny Siopis, […]
Suzanne Goldenberg reports from Male, Maldives, on the painfully slow pace of South Asian economic co-operation WHEN the King of Bhutan’s entourage came to the Maldives for a regional summit this month, they flew from Thimpu to Bangkok, Bangkok to Singapore, Singapore to Colombo, and from there to the capital Male. It was more convenient […]
games Jon Henderson feels the Sampras factor rather than marriage is behind the decline of a moody genius PETE SAMPRAS’S favourite line from literature is from The Catcher In The Rye: “Don’t ever tell anybody anything.” Andre Agassi, Sampras’s great rival on the tennis court, is from the opposing, let-it-all- hang-out corner. The silent approach […]
There is one person left on earth who still speaks an ancient Bushman language. Eddie Koch spoke to her TO meet Elsie Vaalbooi, her black frock draped over a frame bent into the shape of a question mark by 96 forbidding years in the sands of the Kalahari Desert, is to come face-to-face with what […]
‘REMOVE RHODES REMAINS’ A ZIMBABWEAN activist group called “Restoration of Revered African Sites” has called for the removal of Cecil John Rhodes’ grave, which it calls “an insult to the intelligence of the Zimbabwean people”. “It is a well-known fact that the Matopos is the holiest of shrines in the country and, by requesting that […]
Although Unita has little choice but to part with some of its diamond concessions, it will not do so without haggling, reports Chris Gordon UNITA, the Angolan opposition group, is optimistic that deals concerning the diamond mines it occupies will be concluded soon, according to government sources in Luanda. Angola produced diamonds valued at close […]
THURSDAY, 10.00AM: DARRON Smit of Auckland caused an upset when he beat Neil Burkett 21-12 in the Absa Insurance South Africa Men’s Bowls Championships in Killarney on Wednesday. Meanwhile Mark Kromhout also defeated SA champ Robbie Rayfield 21-12 in the quarterfinals. Gerry Baker remained in fine form — he beat KWV’s Stoffel Lambrecht 21-14 and […]
THURSDAY, 10.30AM MINERAL and Energy Affairs Minister on Wednesday detailed far-reaching plans to restructure the energy, mining and petroleum industries, including consolidating Central Energy Fund companies and other state assets into a major public energy company listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchenge. In his maiden budget speech to Parliament, Maduna said the new energy company […]