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 […]
Rock icon Daniel Johnston’s visit to South Africa is a coup for art and grunge Kathryn Smith Where singer-songwriter Daniel Johnston of Texas is concerned, people fall into two categories. Those who know (of) him are always armed with anecdotes ever more extreme, chaotic and hilarious than the last about this figure that has infiltrated […]
This is the make or break year for Cape Town baritone Fikile Mvinjelwa, writes Mathaha Mathaha A string of local and international awards, including the 2001 Standard Bank Young Artist Award for Music, have put Fikile Mvinjelwa under the spotlight. Is he destined for better, bigger things or will he fade? After Love and Green […]
Evidence wa ka Ngobeni The disgraced former chair of the Central Energy Fund (CEF) awarded the head of the state oil company an annual salary of R1,2-million without following proper civil service procedures. Keith Kunene gave Renosi Mokate, CEO of the CEF, the R100 000 a month salary without consulting the parastatal’s board or seeking […]
Stewart Bailey Lonmin, the world’s number three platinum producer, is feverishly researching alternatives to the labour-intensive mining methodologies used in its South African operations before the HIV/Aids scourge rips deep into its productivity. Most mining groups in South Africa long dependent on the country’s cheap and abundant labour force are starting to feel the pinch […]
On Tuesday, exactly 20 years after the discovery of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), South Africa’s minister of health announced the government has no plans to make anti-retroviral drugs available in public hospitals. The country’s share of HIV/Aids cases is now approximately 11,5% of the world total Belinda Beresford The government’s persistent reluctance to provide […]
As one of several indigenous sports, jukskei is becoming popular among black South Africans Marianne Merten The Voortrekkers may have claimed jukskei as their own, but the first hesitant moves are under way to popularise the throwing game of 18th century Cape transport drivers among black South Africans. Although many regard the game as a […]
Soweto residents are calling on authorities to intervene as Eskom continues to cut off their electricity Glenda Daniels The African National Congress stands to lose substantial support in Soweto if it does not intervene in the township’s electricity crisis arguably the most serious crisis the biggest township in the country has faced since democracy. Soweto […]
Stephen Bierley tennis Should Pete Sampras reach his eighth Wimbledon final next month, he would do well to make sure Bill Clinton is nowhere in the vicinity of SW19. When his country’s former president took his seat at Roland Garros on Wednesday Andre Agassi had just won the opening set of his quarterfinal against France’s […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
THE Zimbabwean government had dropped nine farms owned by the South African Oppenheimer mining dynasty from a list of commercial farms to be seized for land redistribution, the state-controlled Herald reported on Thursday. “Some 180 farms, among them six owned by foreign nationals and nine belonging to the Oppenheimer family, have been spared from acquisition,” […]
AUTHORITIES in eastern Nigeria have closed down a local government-run orphanage while an investigation is carried out into child trafficking and prostitution charges, an official said on Tuesday. The Umuoji Motherless Babies’ Home is run by officials of the Idemili North local government. Authorities had become suspicious last week and had raided the home and […]