THROUGHOUT much of the world, pyjamas are generally the business of, and seen by, yourself and your loved ones alone. But not in Shanghai. Any time of the day or night, at virtually any time of the year, a casual stroll through the streets of the eastern Chinese city will give the tourist a visual […]
NIGERIAN dealers dominate the cocaine trade which has exploded in South Africa since the end of apartheid in 1994, according to a report by the Pretoria-based Institute for Security Studies. “Cocaine and crack cocaine were not commonly available in South Africa (prior to 1994) … This market vacuum was filled when Nigerian nationals arrived in […]
WORLD leaders reacted with relief on Monday after French President Jacques Chirac trounced extreme right-winger Jean-Marie Le Pen in an election that had cast a cloud over France’s image on the world stage. With almost one voice, governments in Europe, the Middle East, North Africa and Asia lauded the result as a resounding defeat for […]
MYANMAR democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi has been freed after 19 months under house arrest, the junta said on Monday as her party waited for her to make a triumphant return to its downtown headquarters.
Guy Willoughby Q&A GRAHAMWEIR Letters from Patient Essop began life as part of a larger show with the Elastic Band. Now it’s a complete musical play on its own. Explain this gestation? Essop has found its proper space and feels more complete now. I am not as emotionally linked to the mat- erial as I […]
More than a party girl Caroline Sullivan Philadelphia-born Alicia “Pink” Moore views this second album as a “mind-opening” outing that will distinguish her from the glut of girl-pop clones (Mya, for instance, a collaborator on her number-one single Lady Marmalade). Bearing that in mind, she should drop the giggly exclamation marks used instead of I’s […]
Finding reliable information about programme quality and accreditation is an area of the transnational education road map that still needs to be drawn. Those interested in online degree programmes can start by looking at general reference publications for distance education, such as the Bear’s Guide to Earning Degrees by Distance Learning (www.degree.net). Information about the […]
theatre Matthew Krouse African Bank Market Theatre, Newtown Cultural Precinct. Celebrity director Mbongeni Ngema revives his Eighties masterpiece and Tony Award-nominee Asinamali! The cast combines new and original cast members, including Thami Cele, Bongani Hlope, Bheki Mqadi, Bhoyi Ngema and Ntusi Gordon. Until May 5. Book at Computicket. Tel: 832 1641. Barney Simon Theatre, African […]
Thierry M Luescher Student activism is in limbo. The struggle is over and no new driving force has emerged. HIV/Aids, poverty, unemployment, education, housing, crime, nation-building … students know that these are the issues. However, when asked what they do about them, there is silence. “I use condoms,” one might say, and many smirk or […]
I refer to the article “Megapark threatened” (April 26). Indeed Minister of Enviromental Affairs and Tourism Mohammed Valli Moosa did promise undeliverables with regard to the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park, but I’d like to suggest that a certain stakeholder group got him to stick his neck out on its behalf (for fences to be lifted […]
More than a decade after the Market Photography Workshop was founded, a publication has been launched that illustrates the changing face of South African photography. Yazeed Kamaldien reports Newtown’s Market Photography Workshop was started in 1989, and in reaction to the constraints of apart- heid it threw together people from all walks of life teaching […]
Tony Jackman Is the rate at which sperm travels in space of interest only to those planning to copulate very slowly in zero-gravity conditions? It must be a tad disconcerting when your partner keeps floating off like a bad joke just when you’re approaching the punchline. The question is best not asked, as anyone who […]
Suzan Chala and Jaspreet Kindra Anti-privatisation protests could embarrass the government In a surprise move reminiscent of last year’s anti-privatisation protests during the Durban racism conference, the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) is calling for a civil society-led, anti-privatisation campaign in August this year. Johannesburg will host the United Nations World Summit on Sustainable Development […]
“Tshwete was larger than life a very tough man with the heart of a teddy bear.” Police National Commissioner Jackie Selebi about the late Minister of Safety and Security Steve Tshwete “Freedom does not mean anarchy … If you don’t want to walk, don’t set train coaches alight.” Gauteng Premier Mbhazima Shilowa at Freedom Day […]
What is the origin of the phrase “draconian laws”? Named after Draco, the ancient Athenian statesman whose penal code made his name a byword for severity. Steven Davies, Cape Town What exactly (in biochemical terms) are the “toxins” that so many diet regimes aim to “flush out” of our systems, usually by semi-starvation for a […]
Sarah Duguid Across South Africa, criminals walk free every day because of poor investigation methods. Police officers often see their cases thrown out of court because they are not sufficiently skilled to know how to follow proper procedure. There are 18 000 police officers currently employed as investigators, not counting private investigators, and they have […]
Riaan Wolmarans Barbarellos, Illovo Square, Oxford Road, Illovo. V-Sessions presents DJRudi playing deep and jazzy house on Tuesdays from 9pm. It’s R20 with a free cocktail if you register on www.verge.co.za. Bassline, 7 Seventh Street, Melville. Wessel vanRensburg performs onFridayMay 3 and Moses Khumalo is on stage on Saturday May 4 and Sunday May 5 […]
Neil Sonnekus Movie of the week. More has been made of Halle Berry’s long, tearful performance at the 2002 Oscars than her acting in Monster’s Ball itself. It is not an accumulative award, like Denzel Washington’s was, insultingly. It is a deserved award for a brilliant bit of acting in an equally great film. It […]
Alex Sudheim 330, 330 Point Road. The hardest, fastest club in the country continues to prove that it still has what it takes to push the pleasure buttons of Durban’s hardcore party freaks and seduce every hedonist in town on a Saturday night. Since it opened in 1988, Durban’s first and perennially foremost rave repository […]
Transformation is a concept that our lovely Natal University has strived over the years, particularly post-democratic elections, to make us believe is held in the utmost importance. It appears, however, that a pocket of academics within the university’s corridors of power either has a rather counter-transformation agenda that intends to frustrate the process of redress, […]
How can higher education policies be shaped to support Nepad, asks Richard A Fehnel Two recent news items cause one to ask whether South African higher education is missing “the big picture” which, from one perspective, is how to deal with the future of Africa. African leaders came to an agreement last year that the […]
I OFTEN see them when I’m having a morning cappuccino in my favourite Melville coffee shop. It seems to be a man’s job only, for it’s only men I’ve seen. They vary from young and strong to much older and more fragile, but they have one thing in common…
Alex Sudheim Adams Books and Coffee Shop, Musgrave Centre. Durban’s Live Poets’ Society has been meeting monthly for more than eight years, with its next rendezvous taking place at this coffee-scented literary enclave on Wednesday May 8 at 5.30pm. The guest presenter is celebrated poet Kobus Moolman, who has just been awarded the prestigious Ingrid […]
In a statement released on April 17 Democratic Alliance leader Tony Leon declares that his party has shown “tremendous growth in Alex”, achieving a “substantial increase in support in Alexandra” when their candidate in the by-election managed to obtain 15,2% of the vote, “up from 4,2% in 2000”. What Mr Leon fails to mention is […]
There are some interesting acts of communal memory happening in Cape Town from the Cape Town-boy-makes-good Mark Shuttleworth’s Sixty-Six Shit-Hot Sunsets to the tiny, organised, and impressive Holocaust Museum.
Stephen Gray This is the cultural item I had been told not to miss. They had said: “Stay at the Nest Mountain Resort hotel in the Central Berg. Their staff will get you there on time, along the remaining 7km up the Champagne Valley. There the Drakensberg Boys’ Choir School has its own auditorium and […]
Thabo Mohlala The University of the North West is offering courses in conflict resolution and the preservation of indigenous knowledge systems Conflicts and wars occur with such regularity in Africa that the continent urgently needs innovative methods and mechanisms to improve its chances of stemming a rampant culture of self-annihilation. Angolans have been tearing one […]
Margaret Legum Against Global Apartheid: South Africa Meets the World Bank, IMF and International Finance by Patrick Bond (UCT Press) University of the Witwaters- rand Professor Patrick Bond is one of South Africa’s most ruthless and meticulous analysts and critics of the neo-liberal international economic paradigm, especially as it applies in South Africa. There are […]
New technology may signal the end of computer screens as we know them, writes David Shapshak When Apple boss Steve Jobs introduced the new iMac, which has a built-on flat panel monitor, he used an interesting phrase: “The death of the CRT.” The CRT, or cathode ray tube, is the technology that has powered our […]
This week’s unexpected Cabinet announcement clearly signals a shift in South Africa’s policy on the treatment of HIV/Aids, and it would be churlish not to praise the government.
David Shapshak Samsung SyncMaster 151s. This Samsung flat panel monitor reminds me of Ally McBeal. It’s thin and sexy. The only difference is nobody seems to hate it like they hate the TV show. It’s not a good comparison though. The monitor has no neurosis it worked perfectly from the moment I plugged it in. […]
Adventure walk. The Great Autumn Adventure Walk will take place at the Witwatersrand National Botanical Garden in Poortview, Roodepoort, on May 4 at 8am. Tickets cost R20 for adults and R10 for pensioners and students. Tel: (011) 958 1750 or e-mail: [email protected]. Autumn carnival. A carnival to raise funds for the establishment of a trauma […]