Angela Neustatter Body Language Brian Argrave was in his mid-30s when he found a swelling on his right testicle. It grew to the point where it was painful to walk, but even then he only went to the doctor when his wife, Jill, insisted. Cancer was diagnosed and he was admitted to hospital for an […]
Tango at the festival They’re doing the tango in Isidingo, Al Pacino did it in Scent of a Woman, director Sally Potter found her feet with The Tango Lesson, and great Spanish film-maker Carlos Sauro gave up political protest for the consuming fires of tango and flamenco. At the festival, Tango del Fuego, directed by […]
Microsoft’s operating system won the battle for the desktop. Now the software giant wants to remould the Internet to keep its dominant position. Jack Schofield reports Even if Microsoft’s Xbox games console flops, it should do at least one useful thing: it should stop people thinking of the company as merely a PC software firm. […]
GLENDA DANIELS, Johannesburg | Friday THE Johannesburg High Court this week found in favour of a handyman who worked at the brothel The Ranch, in a civil case brought against the Ministry of Safety and Security. Matthew Palmer claimed R800_000 in damages for brutal assault and unlawful arrest and detention when the police raided The […]
Disabled people are starving while officials shuffle paper in an attempt to decide whether to help them. Roshila Pillay reports Disabled people in the North West province have been queuing at clinics from 4am to have doctors examine them and confirm whether they can receive their R540 a month disability grant, since grants were suspended […]
Jaspreet Kindra KwaZulu-Natal Minister of Transport S’bu Ndebele may be facing criminal charges after he procured faxes and e-mails sent to provincial officials and politicians questioning his role in the taxi industry. Ndebele used the documents to attack the media, including the Mail & Guardian, claiming the news- paper was involved in a political conspiracy […]
Marianne Merten An intricate web of gangsters, anti-drug vigilantes, a schoolboy drug dealer and a suspected corrupt policeman operating in the Cape Flats underworld has emerged in Cape Town courts. Two leading members of the Americans gang are applying for bail on Friday June 8 after being arrested in connection with almost 2 000 Mandrax […]
Chiken Bizniz: The Whole Story is an award-winning film about a man who leaves his job at the Johannesburg Stock Exchange to become a chicken mogul in Soweto. By all accounts it’s a regular crowd-pleaser. The Great Dance: A Hunter’s Story is a visually beautiful documentary about three San hunters tracking their prey while explaining […]
You have to be hard when you know your heart is going to be broken by the death of a child. Gail Johnson does not deserve the treatment she is getting, argues Charlene Smith The problem with Gail Johnson is that she has long red nails and wild red hair, she wears tight-fitting slacks over […]
Anthony Holiday Plato held that what people love makes them what they are. Politicians, with rare exceptions, love power and are often driven by the fear of losing it and of the form that loss may take. Thus what a politician fears most provides a crucial clue to what he is and why he acts […]
Niel Sonnekus This year’s Standard Bank National Arts Film Festival ranges from the darkly confrontational to the classic, with plenty of space for the experimental, the local and the sadomasochistic in between. Heading the festival is the work of Durban-bred film-maker Ian Kerkhof, who lived in Amsterdam from 1983 to 1999 because he didn’t “feel […]
Tim Wood american notes When fauna and flora take precedence over humans, there is a serious problem that has nothing to do with the ugly face of capitalism. The United States is frothing about its energy vulnerability. California is suffering rolling blackouts that threaten its neighbours and petrol prices are higher than they have been […]
Jaspreet Kindra Eskom should be providing electricity on a free lifeline basis where it has jurisdiction, says Wits University political economist Patrick Bond. He cites the Irene Grootboom case last year, which gave force to the constitutional guarantee of dignity in shelter and services as the basis for an argument for a lifeline electricity supply. […]
Mboniso Sigonyela Passenger vehicle sales for May are down in line with other indicators of consumer demand, but vehicle manufacturers should not lose hope as exports and commercial vehicles sales are increasing. The gains in commercial sales show that fixed investment is recovering while weakness of the rand, particularly against the pound, makes vehicle exports […]
Valentine Cascarino food Although Mozambican cuisine is one of the most delicious in Africa, it nevertheless requires patience from patrons as most meals take about two to three hours to prepare. But it’s worth the wait if you want first-hand experience of a cuisine that goes beyond prawns peri-peri, entering a realm caught up between […]
Kathryn Smith Fauna seems to be the order of the day at this year’s Standard Bank National Arts Festival in Grahamstown. Two of the featured exhibitions on this year’s main programme revolve around the semantics of the animal world, whether it’s Walter Oltmann’s monumental insects fashioned from woven wire and tubing, or Willie Bester’s take […]
Thebe Mabanga The legacy of South Africa’s literary icon Zanemvula Kizito Gatyeni Mda, known internationally as Zakes, is about to be further entrenched when his first adult novel Ways of Dying takes to the stage as a musical called Love and Green Onions. The novel has already been successfully dramatised by Lara Foot Newton in […]
Alec Hogg boardroom talk After years of being shielded by a complicated ownership structure and an M-Cell investment that dwarfed its operational earnings, media and entertainment business Johnnic Communications (Johncom) is about to be exposed to the full glare of shareholder attention. It is not a flattering picture. In virtually every area of its operations, […]
Nicholas Neveling Playwright Reza de Wet isn’t too bothered about the numerous literary prizes she has won or the big city fame she could achieve if she wanted to. “It’s the experience itself. It’s the felt life that’s all important. Some of my best experiences have been in very small productions that no one really […]
Lauren Shantall FINEART The village of Zuney hasn’t felt the shudder of a locomotive in more than a decade. The abandoned metal tracks have gone to rusty seed, overgrown with weeds, the wooden sleepers lie dormant, rotting. Once a day, many years ago, the linked carriages en route from Port Elizabeth to Port Alfred would […]
Classical and contemporary music is hoisting the flag high at this year’s impressive New Music Indaba. Music critic Paul Boekkooi looks at the sounds on offer Festivals are there to allow experimentation, or as Charles Ives would have it, “some serious stretching of the ears”. They are showcases for new and unusual talent, and a […]
EMSIE FERREIRA, Cape Town | Wednesday TWELVE sugar cane farms in eastern South Africa have been torched and about 1_000 black families are occupying portions of 63 sugar farms in a land dispute that has turned violent, a farmer said on Tuesday. Police and soldiers have been on the farms since last week to protect […]
KIGALI | Thursday RWANDAN Hutu rebels have suffered major losses in the bloodiest outbreak of fighting the country has seen for years, losing 150 men in a clash with government troops, according to the army. The Rwandan army said it had killed at least 150 Hutu extremist rebels on Wednesday as they tried to enter […]
HARARE | Thursday CHENJERAI Hitler Hunzvi, the militant leader of Zimbabwe’s liberation war veterans who died on Monday, has been declared a national hero by the ruling party. The staunch ally of President Robert Mugabe will be buried on Friday at the North Korean-built Heroes’ Acre, a shrine traditionally reserved for prominent members of the […]
DEFENCE lawyers on Tuesday finished their summing up in the case of two nuns accused by a Belgian court of taking part in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda that claimed up to 800_000 lives. The two lawyers representing one of the nuns, Sister Kizito, rejected the testimony of prosecution witnesses, describing their statements as a […]
ANGOLANS will enjoy risk-free viewing of the solar eclipse of June 21 thanks to a government expenditure of three million dollars on protective glasses, the science and technology ministry said on Tuesday. The total eclipse, which will cross Angola along a 200km band, will last the longest – more than four and a half minutes […]
REBELS in Sierra Leone have released 150 children, among them 40 girls, from an eastern stronghold in Kailahun, the UN Children’s Fund Unicef announced on Tuesday. The children, aged eight to 18 years old, were freed on Monday and airlifted Tuesday to Daru, some 50km away where they were received by staff from the aid […]
THE United Nations said it has slapped travel restrictions on Liberian President Charles Taylor and several of his top advisors and family members. A list of 150 people banned from travelling was published on Tuesday by the Sanctions Committee in accordance with Resolution 1343, which came into effect on May 7 and aims to cut […]
LESOTHO Prime Minister Pakalitha Mosisili fired three ministers on Thursday ahead of elections due in the first quarter of next year and demoted Deputy Prime Minister Kelebone Maope, moving him from the finance ministry to law, justice and human rights. Out are Law, Justice and Human Rights Minister Shakhane Mokhehle; Health Minister Tefo Mabote and […]
BUSINESSES in Malawi are giving customers sweets instead of small change because they say there is a shortage of coins in the country. But the Reserve Bank of Malawi insists it has adequate stocks of all denominations of the kwacha and tambala currency and that it is unacceptable to use sweets as change. “The public, […]
NORTHERN Province Premier Ngoako Ramatlhodi accused British asbestos mining company Cape plc of leaving South Africa with a “legacy of death and suffering”. He was speaking during a press conference on Wednesday before leaving for England to meet with lawyers suing the company on behalf of about 5_000 poisoned South Africans. “Cape plc made use […]
JABU MHLABANE & SHARON HAMMOND, Pietersburg | Wednesday PAN Africanist Congress (PAC) youth in the Northern Province have taken a major step away from the controversial “one settler one bullet” war cry and extended an olive branch to farmers. The PAC’s youth wing, Pan Africanist Youth Congress of Azania (Payco) resolved at its annual congress […]