Depending who you listen to, Internet commerce has either flopped or is booming. Either way, there are South Africans who are making a lot of money from it, reports Arthur Goldstuck IT is the numbers, in the end, that impress, and there are enough of those to show that the Internet has become big business […]
Maria McCloy POP star Brenda Fassie says she will sue the music magazine e’Vibe for printing an interview with her that never took place. “I hate it, I’m pissed off with it, and my lawyers are going to be dealing with this and I’m going to be suing them for half-a- million rand,” said the […]
CYCLING:Gustav Thiel SOUTH AFRICA’S cycling fraternity will receive what some term a belated wake-up call when the African continent hosts the first-ever World Cup event in this sport in Stellenbosch this weekend. The first leg of the prestigious Grundig UCI World Cup for mountain bikes in South Africa heralds the genesis, if event organiser Carinus […]
NICHOLAS WROE meets a wary member of `this Scottish literary renaissance thing’ ALAN WARNER was a driver for British Rail in Edinburgh when his first novel, Morvern Callar, was accepted for publication. “They’d just phoned me at 1am asking me to work at eight the same morning,” he says. “So I went in, told the […]
A special investigative unit arrived in Mpumalanga this week and is uncovering politicians’ dicey deals, reports Justin Arenstein THE National Parks Board chairman and respected former homeland leader, Dr Enos Mabuza, is being probed by the most powerful government investigative unit in South Africa for a state farm he bought for R6 000 in 1991 […]
SUTTNER IN SWEDEN RAYMOND SUTTNER, chairman of parliament’s foriegn affairs committee and a vociferious proponent of an “ethical” foreign policy, has been appointed ambassador to Sweden. Sheila Sisulu, director of World Wide Africa Investment Holdings, has been appointed consul general to New York. MEYER MISSES MEETING MEYER-WATCHERS concerned with which way the National Party’s former […]
If computers can beat humans at chess, does that make them smarter than us? Julia Grey reports MACHINE has finally conquered man: Garry Kasparov, world champion chess player, succumbed this week to IBM’s supercomputer, Deep Blue, in their six-game rematch. The outlandish vision of the science fiction world, seen in 2001: A Space Odyssey, where […]
THE ANGELLA JOHNSON INTERVIEW MEET Gilbert Magabotse, a South African sporting hero. His face may not be as familiar to you as that of Olympic marathon gold medallist Josiah Thugwane, and he has not been invited to tea with Nelson Mandela, but here is the country’s latest world champion. The reason you might not have […]
The hard men chosen for the Lions squad arrive on Sunday, and the Springboks are looking particularly vulnerable at the moment RUGBY:Steve Morris THERE must surely be the realisation that, as was the case when this country was first re-admitted to the international arena five years ago, our rugby has again suffered the type of […]
THE response to the publication of Washington Post correspondent Keith Richburg’s book Out of America: A Black Man Confronts Africa, which provides a dramatic depiction of the suffering and brutality of our continent, has been heated and acrimonious. Though this extract first appeared in the Post two years ago, the fury of the debate has […]
The women played some strokes of genius but there were not many spectactors to witness them GOLF:Mark Lamport-Stokes LAST week’s South African women’s amateur golf championships at Killarney Golf Club highlighted two factors: this country possesses women golfers of a high quality but the sport still struggles to attract the galleries. Immaculate Killarney in Johannesburg […]
Rebel leader Laurent Kabila is making economic decisions that could impoverish Zaire further. Stefaans Brmmer reports from Lubumbashi LAURENT KABILA’S alliance has shown itself adept at waging war, but signs are it has a lot to learn about managing the peace. Erratic decisions by the rebel leader’s young “government” have eroded outsider confidence. His actions […]
FRIDAY, 11.00AM MORE than half the sample in an informal email survey of South African emigrants to the United States said their quality of life and prospects had improved in the US. The survey, using a random sample of subscribers to Juluka, a newsletter for expatriates, found 80% had reported incomes above the median for […]
Researchers can’t agree on whether we are sleep-deprived, writes Jay Rayner from London, but the evidence suggests that few of us get enough IN their recent paper We are chronically sleep deprived, doctors Michael Bonnet and Donna Arand from Dayton, Ohio, produced facts and figures to support their title. They found that 50% of college […]
Africa is not a romantic motherland for black Americans, but a cruel despotic continent, writes Keith Richburg I WATCHED the dead float down a river in Tanzania. It’s one of those apocryphal stories you always hear coming out of Africa, meant to demonstrate the savagery of “the natives”. Babies being pulled off their mothers’ backs […]
IF the writing was not on the wall for the Mobutu Sese Seko regime before, it was there last week in a cable sent to Washington by the United States embassy in Kinshasa. It reported that the newly appointed prime minister of Zaire, General Likulia Bolongo was preparing for “a speedy departure from Kinshasa with […]
Anticipating International Museums Day on Sunday May 18, STEPHEN GRAY visits the African Window THE new African Window – part of a developing belt or mall of museums in downtown Pretoria – is the first suitable home there has ever been for that city’s vast Museum of Culture. Six exhibit spaces are already up, in […]
A CROWD of 200 quietly formed in a semi- circle around the main shack. They remained silent for about 45 minutes, apart from one woman’s exuberant cries of yebo when she heard something she really liked. They were listening to the interview with Agrinette Madwayi (40) and two other senior members of the residents’ committee. […]
Gavin Lewis IT’S easy to be cynical about the Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP). The programme has not been helped by the rhetorical overload that accompanied its launch, unrealistic targets accompanied by impossible deadlines and the spectacle of many “opinion-makers”, particularly in business and the media (with some honourable exceptions), jumping on and off the […]
Another year, another Bandslam, another phase in the South African rock revival, another review from MALU VAN LEEUWEN … ANOTHER Bandslam. Another five bands, another 1300 people, another six hours of exchanging sweat, smoke and beery conversation. Having your feet crunched by Arno Carstens as he pogos on your boots. Having to shout your bar […]
herStoriA deputy editor DELIA ROTHNIE-JONES explores the rewards of literary prizes THE recent death of the CNA Literary Award means that another window of opportunity for writers has been boarded up. Soon we shall be left only with peep-holes into our country’s soul. Faced with this withering of literary activity, we are forced to ask […]
FRIDAY, 5.00PM SWAZILAND’S government has ‘suspended” the country’s Federation of Trade Unions (SFTU), using the pretext that it failed to submit its financial returns on time, officials said today (Friday). The government of King Mswati II has been in dispute with the unions all year, over union demands for a democratic society. A month-long national […]
Millions of people camped in informal settlements are transforming the country’s industrial heartland. Mungo Soggot and Tangeni Amupadhi report on the urban time bomb THEY often strike in the early hours of a cold winter’s morning. Groups of men armed with bags of chalk and a flag assemble on empty land. They mark out plots […]
Marion Edmunds `I WANT my rape courts,” bellowed the exasperated attorney general of the Western Cape, Frank Kahn, down the phone line this week. “We’ve been waiting for four years and nothing has been done.” Earlier this week, Kahn hit out at the Department of Justice in his annual report tabled in Parliament for its […]
BOTH teams have Italian strikers – Chelsea have Gianfranco Zola while Middlesbrough boast the talents of Fabrizio Ravanelli. But there will be many other foreigners on display making Saturday’s FACup the most cosmopolitan ever staged, with 10 different nationalities represented in the expected starting line-ups. Italy will have the biggest overseas contingent, with four. Other […]
Using a State of Emergency to combat crime puts the solution in the hands of the problem, argues Nicholas Smith SHOULD the government declare a State of Emergency in an attempt to deal with the crime epidemic? Probably not, but this is a complex question so we first need to define our terms. The “crime […]
Julie Barker AT Western Platinum Mine in Mooi Nooi, near the Magaliesberg, a group of mine employees is rehearsing a play. They are putting the final touches on Shortcuts. The group is called Thuto ke Lesedi, which means Education is Light. Formed just over a year ago, Thuto ke Lesedi has, with the help of […]
Mail & Guardian Reporter THE three men who blew the whistle on police death squads have been convicted of the murder of Durban lawyer Griffiths Mxenge while their two colleagues, whom they say were also involved, have been acquitted. Former Vlakplaas commander Dirk Coetzee, and his operatives Almond Nofemela and David Tshikilange, were found guilty […]
South Africa’s economic revolution is under way and trade unions are leading the charge, writes Eddie Koch WHAT began as a silent coup, hatched in the corporate boardrooms of Main Street, Johannesburg, and Sandton, has burgeoned into one of the most radical transformations since the 1994 elections. At stake is the very nature of South […]
Despite a drop in import duties, do not expect to see a decrease in the price of CDs, writes Glynis O’Hara IMPORT duties have dropped significantly since the Budget, but most CD retailers don’t intend to pass the saving on to consumers just yet. Customs and Excise in Pretoria says import duties have been reduced […]
Hip-hoppers Prophets of da City in The 15- minute Interview. By MARIA MCCLOY MM: You’ve been recording for seven years. Has it been difficult? Shaheen: It’s been hard, but I’m glad we’ve been through it – all types of crazy-shit censorship – but we had to because we were the country’s only hip-hop group. We […]
After decades on the mines, a Mozambican man has been offered R1 777,54 for long service. He is one of thousands left without old-age security, writes Ferial Haffajee FORTY-EIGHT years ago, Andre Muianga joined the throng of Mozambican men leaving their homes in Xai-Xai to work in South Africa’s booming gold mines. On January 20 […]