CRICKET Peter Robinson Along with soaring sales of pool chemicals and taxi blockades (although this last tends to be an event for all seasons), one of the rites of the South African spring is to watch the national cricket selectors trip over their own feet as they stride purposefully towards the new summer. Two years […]
About 98% of the Cape Town Opera choir is black, writes Barry Streek Opera in South Africa, especially in the “racist” Western Cape, has suddenly gone black. In the process, the image of opera as elite, Eurocentric art and entertainment has all but disappeared. Today 98% of the Cape Town Opera choir is black, as […]
Social and regional alliances are some of the strategies that will be discussed at a labour conference next week focusing on how to deal with the problem of globalisation and the changing nature of work. The conference is entitled Challenges Facing Labour in Southern Africa: Marginalisation or Revitalisation?. Topics for discussion include: labour in a […]
A NEW oil pipeline fire is threatening to force Anglo-Dutch oil group Royal Dutch/Shell to cut exports by 200 000 barrels per day, a newspaper report said on Friday. The newspaper This Day quoted Shell representative Precious Omoku as saying production was threatened by the fire which Shell blamed on vandalism of its oil pipelines […]
analysis Neeran Naidoo The impact of telecommunications and information and communication technologies (ICT) on economies, countries and societies is speculative in nature. Much of the current analysis is pinned on case studies. There is little evidence from which to predict the outcome of the trend towards knowledge economies apart from the fact that we need […]
President Robert Mugabe’s speech on Saturday made it quite clear that he is becoming increasingly willing to resort to anarchy and violence in order to gain political popularity and retain power. His warning to farmers that they must not retaliate or expect police protection when confronted with violence by axe-wielding mobs of thugs bent on […]
Q&A: Nicky newman Matthew Krouse Johannesburg comes under fire in The Architecture of Fear, a frightening documentary expounding every city-dwellers worst fears. Unwittingly, it’s a dark comedy of paranoia. Well-known individuals, such as photographer David Goldblatt and confidence coach Mike Lipkin, as well as a host of suburban reprobates reflect on the way Jo’burg fortifies […]
KHADIJA MAGARDIE, Johannesburg | Friday THE frenetic pace of activity in Geneva around the finalisation of the draft declaration for the World Conference against Racism is being matched by those working around the clock to touch up the controversial “unofficial agenda”. As organisers limber up for the official conference, various NGOs, individuals and groups have […]
channel vision Robert Kirby Speaking on last Sunday’s Carte Blanche, visiting BBC interviewer Tim Sebastian recalled a comment once made to him by Northern Ireland mandarin Gerry Adams. “How long have you been in Northern Ireland?” asked Adams, after being interviewed by Sebastian. “Since this morning,” said Sebastian. “It shows,” said Adams. Last week’s series […]
The Zimbabwean army is to be deployed on white-owned farms to “speed up” redistribution of land and to “protect” black settlers from violent farmers, says the government. Land Minister Joseph Made told the state-owned Herald newspaper that the military is being called in because the pace of farm seizures is too slow. Harare is portraying […]
Jo’burg people are portrayed as complex and creative in the work of Patrick de Mervelec Matthew Krouse Patrick de Mervelec’s exhibition Jo’burger, currently at the Pretoria Art Museum, is the result of a labour-intensive work of love. This master of French photography, now living in South Africa, has initiated a body of work “born out […]
Johannesburg | Friday THE first steps towards creating a single currency and a single central bank for Africa were taken at a meeting of the association of the continent’s central bank governors, its newly elected chairman said on Thursday. South African Reserve Bank governor and new Association of Central African Bankers (AACB) chairman Tito Mboweni […]
DaimlerChrysler denies there is a government-company strategy to deal with the motor strike Glenda Daniels DaimlerChrysler’s chairperson has crushed union suspicions that the government advised the company to threaten to withdraw from South Africa to stop the protracted automobile strike. Union insiders said they suspected that DaimlerChrysler, “being friends” of the government, was urged to […]
The government says it is working on a strategy to improve the delivery of much-needed systems Barry Streek Minister of Education Kader Asmal has disclosed in Parliament that two-thirds of South African schools (17907 schools) are without adequate sanitation and 11,7% (3188 schools) do not have any sanitation at all. There were 27148 schools in […]
Jubie Matlou One training institution that has cut a niche for itself in information and communications technology is the Learning Information Networking Knowledge Centre (Link) of the Wits University Graduate School of Public and Development Management. Cellphone provider Vodacom made funds available for the study of new information and communications technologies and their possible effects […]
MUNGO SOGGOT, Johannesburg | Friday IN what would be a first in modern times, South Africa is within reach of a budget surplus. Tax collections have far exceeded expectations during the first few months of the fiscal year. At the same time, government expenditure is not keeping up the pace amid ongoing concerns that several […]
Thabo Mohlala House number 63, Shelley Road, Lombardy East, is owned by Transnet. It has a big yard, five rooms and two bathrooms. Since April Piet Mabotja*, a young security officer from Lebowakgomo in the Northern Province, has been standing guard around the clock for a pittance R20 a month. Four months later, Mabotja is […]
The South African Women’s Arts Festival could have done with a little more humour and less exclusivity Thebe Mabanga It was not so much art with feminine chic but rather art with feminine grit as vain plain Janes, poets and prancers came out to play at the fifth offering of the South African Women’s Arts […]
Mungo Soggot In what would be a first in modern times, South Africa is within reach of a budget surplus. Tax collections have far exceeded expectations during the first few months of the fiscal year. At the same time, government expenditure is not keeping up the pace amid ongoing concerns that several departments lack the […]
BRITAIN blocked Nigeria Airways from launching a new Lagos-London service at the last minute because the airline had leased an aircraft from Djibouti, which does not meet international safety standards, officials said on Thursday. The Nigerian carrier was poised to starts flights on the lucrative route with an aircraft and crew leased from Air Djibouti, […]
We need to look afresh at how technology can bring high-quality services to all, writes Chris Bell While fibre optic cables are today being laid around the coastline and in major African cities, there still remain vast tracks of the continent where populations are unlikely to benefit from these investments. The danger is obvious: rural […]
Paul Kirk From June 1 last year to July 4 this year, 106 police were dismissed from the South African Police Service in KwaZulu-Natal. Seven of them were convicted of murder. These figures were released last week by the minister of safety and security in response to a question in Parliament about how many police […]
Local soccer cannot seem to avoid controversy Ntuthuko Maphumulo Just as the Premier Soccer League (PSL) was about to breathe a sigh of relief that the end of its off-the-field problems was in sight, trouble blew up on the field. Efforts by African Wanderers and Bloemfontein Celtic to extend their stay in the elite league […]
STEFAANS BRMMER AND MUNGO SOGGOT, Johannesburg | Friday ONE of the men implicated in a bribe scandal that rocked the state oil industry was this week made chairperson of Armscor. Seth Phalatse has admitted he took a $20_ 000 (about R165_000) cash bribe in May last year. He subsequently returned the money and, months later, […]
Marianne Merten Feel like visiting the pyramids without leaving your armchair? Or maybe getting to grips with Heathrow Airport in London before stepping off the plane? Simply enter what looks like a miniature television game show set, sit and let the computers do the rest at the virtual reality laboratory at the Institute of Satellite […]
Chris McGreal reports from Doma, where white farmers are under siege They see it as their Kosovo. The last few dozen white farmers left in a sprawling patch of northern Zimbabwe have fallen back on tactics learned from the Rhodesian bush war three decades ago, but without the guns. From before dawn until after midnight […]
Thebe Mabanga Telecommunication features prominently in any analysis of economic trends and investment issues in determining a country’s rating in the world. Business Map SA consultant Pam Sykes calls telecommunication an enabling sector that facilitates ease of operations in sectors like transport. It is also important as an industrial sector in its own right. Jan […]
Comment Na’eem Jeenah Apartheid South Africa and Israel caused the main discussions in the previous two world anti-racism conferences 1978 and 1983. South Africa has since been liberated and anti-racism activists around the world are demanding Israel be discussed at the Durban anti-racism conference. Why this clamour from activists, scholars and international civil society? Because […]
Telkom is expanding its network, but costs are slowing demand Jubie Matlou Telephones for hundreds of rural villages and townships spread across the country are ready to ring. About 70000 towers punctuate the country’s landscape, waiting for subscriptions from villagers to connect a telephone line. Labelled the wireless local loop, each tower has a 10km […]
The turmoil in Zimbabwe has been caused by Robert Mugabe’s opportunism analysis Jonathan Steele It may be no accident that the latest outbursts of thuggery in Zimbabwe have flared up in Chinhoyi. The first fatal clashes in the black nationalist uprising after Zanu, Robert Mugabe’s liberation party, turned from civic protest to armed struggle against […]
Will the racism conference be hijacked? comment David Saks It was always predictable, if deplorable, that the forthcoming World Conference Against Racism would be used by certain lobbies as a diplomatic weapon against Israel. Indeed, preparations for the conference have been the occasion for a vast amount of violently anti-Israel rhetoric. It remains to be […]
Hestrie Cloete and the men’s 4x100m relay team brought joy but there are still many problems in South African athletics Martin Gillingham Even if you’re one of the sports lovers who thought South Africa’s athletes did well at the world championships in Edmonton, there’s no disputing one fact: they did it in spite, rather than […]