Marianne Merten TELEVISION It’s a slice of real prison life not the Hollywood glamour lock-down peppered with special effects, nor the gold-studded rap glorification of being a bad “muthafucka”. It’s about the reality of violence, rape, beatings and gory facial tattoos behind bars where the prison numbers gangs have dominated since the turn of the […]
John Young The South African cricket team don’t spend a lot of their time reading the local newspapers so they won’t know that their first visit to Port-of-Spain caused quite a stir. On the day the cricketers’ plane landed, two days before the second Test, the Trinidad Guardian published as its Thought for Today a […]
The Face of Africa fashion show on May 26 will be a landmark in the career of acclaimed composer Zwai Bala Thebe Mabanga The music scene is littered with tales of acts it’s inappropriate to call them artists who promise much but fail to live up to the hype. The scene also has a number […]
Evidence wa ka Ngobeni The South African National Gambling Board, the statutory body charged with the regulation of the gambling industry, has spent hundreds of thousands of rands on developing legislation aimed at regulating Internet casinos. The gambling board confirmed this week it paid more than R900 000 to an Australian firm, DGS, to develop […]
Mboniso Sigonyela Turbulent stock markets and falling rand exchange rates ensured that the number of dollar millionaires in Africa remained flat. But the World Wealth Report 2001, compiled by Merrill Lynch and Cap Gemini Ernst & Young, says South Africa has confirmed its position as the continent’s economic powerhouse. According to the report, South Africa […]
Having found ‘special’ players it is important to develop them Andy Capostagno It is traditional for Springbok selectors to produce at least one shock in every squad. In 1992 the first post-isolation touring team included the then unknown Western Transvaaler Botha Rossouw. In 1995 Kitch Christie took a chance on Transvaal scrumhalf Bennie Nortje, although […]
Marianne Merten Guilty of tax evasion? Call on the People for Justice to raise public support while your appeal is pending. Dozens of posters sprang up in the Cape Town CBD on Wednesday in support of reputed crime boss Colin Stanfield, who is out on R100 000 bail pending his appeal against a six-year jail […]
The PSL title looks destined for one of the two Soweto giants Ntuthuko Maphumulo The race for Premier Soccer League (PSL) title will not be over until the fat lady sings but the first notes sounded for defending champions Sundowns after their 0-0 draw with Orlando Pirates on Wednesday. The Mamelodi outfit still have a […]
Kathryn Smith FINE art One comment by a visitor to Alan Alborough’s Standard Bank Young Artist exhibition reads: “Totally incomprehensible. Which is kinda nice in a chin-stroking, art diploma kinda way isn’t this image a bit too myopic in its area of attraction? It’s too inaccessible to revolutionise but not sensational enough to excite. And […]
Ntuthuko Maphumulo baseball Having your child represent South Africa in a sport is a source of great pride to a parent but it can also come at a high price. The South African under-16 baseball team will be competing against the best in the world at the world youth championship in Mexico in August. The […]
The medical aid scheme is facing a moral backlash from doctors and patients who accuse it of making huge profits while its members die from a treatable infection. Chen Blignaut reports Aids specialists and lawyers have accused the country’s wealthiest private medical aid scheme, Discovery Health, of “handing down death sentences” by “duping” members into […]
The government denies that it aims to close down the University of Transkei, and says the retrenchments are part of restructuring Glenda Daniels and David Macfarlane The University of Transkei (Unitra) has been flung into crisis and conflict over the retrenchment of 300 staff members both lower-skilled workers and academics. Union sources say this is […]
Marianne Merten Appearing in the dock with a black-and-white chequered scarf across his shoulders, and a white scarf and kaffiyeh covering his head, People Against Gangsterism and Drugs (Pagad) leader Abdus-Salaam Ebrahim has taken on all the trappings of a martyr. Turning to supporters in the public gallery, he raises his hand. A leather Qur’an […]
In the Caribbean, members of the touring South African cricket team are fined R10 000 each for smoking dagga. In the ensuing controversy at home some feel they should be hung, drawn and quartered while others say it was just a harmless party activity performed in private and really not an important issue. In the […]
The Caribbean dope-smoking affair was badly handled especially so soon after the Hansie Cronje scandal Peter Robinson One of the more fascinating aspects of South Africa’s tour of the Caribbean has been the condition of Herschelle Gibbs’s head. So clean-shaven on top as to resemble a hard-boiled egg, a fashionable scrub is on display lower […]
Greg Mills and Tim Hughes Amid the controversy of power plays among South Africa’s political leadership, it is too easy to neglect the huge strides made by the country since 1994 not just in consolidating its democracy, but in addressing core socio-economic issues. Comparisons with other emerging markets in East Asia not only bear this […]
Stefaans Brmmer Credit bureaus those hawkers of information on you and your creditworthiness are pushing for a new code of conduct that, critics charge, will allow them to store private details such as your political affiliation, mental state and sexual preference. The credit industry says the majority of consumer items are bought on credit. Credit […]
A South African who became one of the leading lights of the British stage has now written his autobiography. Antony Sher spoke to Shaun de Waal Sir Antony Sher’s autobiography, Beside Myself (Hutchinson), is not simply a luvvie’s memoir. Despite its easy and often humorous style, Sher digs deep, talking about everything from his one-time […]
Evidence wa ka Ngobeni The newly elected first black vice-chancellor of Pretoria Technikon has vowed to transform the historically white institution to reflect the new democratic South Africa and the values articulated by the African National Congress-led government. Professor Langalibalele Ngcobo, whose appointment was confirmed by the technikon council last week, said his appointment to […]
Paul Kirk The newly appointed director of Durban Metro Police, Henry Manzi, has been investigated in a fraud probe totalling nearly R1-million. Manzi’s fortunes are going from bad to worse. He is also accused of having charges relating to traffic offences committed by his uncle, Jabulani Manzi, dropped. The Mail & Guardian has learned from […]
The Film and Publication Board has passed the video version of the French arthouse film <i>Romance X</i> for general distribution without cuts. The film, which features several scenes of explicit nudity and sex will carry an age restriction of 18, which means that it may only be rented or sold to adults.
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Windhoek | Thursday NAMIBIAS politically influential Council of Churches (CCN) wants to meet President Sam Nujoma after he called Christianity a “foreign philosophy”, the council’s general secretary said on Wednesday. The CCN’s request comes after a recent meeting between Nujoma and farmers where he also accused 19th century Finnish missionaries to the desert […]
TIMBER production in Congo is expected to reach 850_,000 tons this year as compared with 650_000 tonnes in 2000 because peace has returned after years of civil war, a top forestry official said on Wednesday. The forecast of a 200_000 ton rise in production is based on resumed logging in the central Niari and Lekoumou […]
THE Anglo American-Oppenheimer family deal to delist South African diamond giant De Beers is a “wonderful opportunity for South Africa,” South African Reserve Bank (SARB) Governor Tito Mboweni said on Thursday. Speaking on independent radio station 702, Mboweni said that the SARB would buy as much of the $3.5bn inflows as possible and would use […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Noupoort | Thursday A TEENAGER from Moreleta Park in Pretoria has died in a “detention camp” at a Christian care centre in Noupoort for drug and alcohol addicts, apparently after being chained by his neck in a disciplinary cell, Beeld newspaper reports. The centre, run by clergymen, has accused the police of “unprofessional […]
TUNISIAN soldiers are preparing to join the United Nations peacekeeping force in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), according to the Tunisian defence ministry. President Zine el Abidine Ben Ali discussed the deployment, set for Saturday, with Defense Minister Dali Jazi in a meeting Tuesday, officials said. The soldiers, thought to number 200 though the […]
THE chief prosecutor of the United Nations tribunal dealing with Rwandan genocide suspects, Carla Del Ponte, on Wednesday rejected charges of racism from several court prosecutors whose contracts were not renewed. “These attacks of racism are absolutely ridiculous,” said Del Ponte’s spokeswoman Florence Hartmann. The only criteria for not renewing the contracts was efficiency, she […]
Race argument at genocide tribunal Seven black prosecutors at the UN tribunal for Rwanda in Arusha, have raised issues of racism after not being reappointed by chief prosecutor Carla Del Ponte. The BBC ‘Extinct’ plants found in N Cape Botanists from the Royal Botanic Gardens’ millennium seed bank have found healthy specimens of two plants […]
AN Egyptian who had too much to drink in a nightclub on the banks of the Nile in Cairo, jumped into the river to dodge paying for his drinks, only to drown there, a police source said on Tuesday. Mohamed Massud, a 27-year-old taxi driver, had invited an electrician friend of the same age to […]
A SPAT is brewing between leading dial-up Internet Service Provider M-Web, and Absa Bank, which three months ago introduced its own free ISP service. On Monday, M-Web sent out a press release saying that Absa and its Internet partner Affinity, are misleading the public in suggesting that their free ISP service will survive. M-Web chief […]
LIBYAN leader Colonel Muammar Gadaffi has told German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder’s chief foreign policy adviser, Michael Steiner, that Libya was behind the 1986 bombing of a Berlin disco in which three people were killed, the daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reported on Tuesday. The newspaper reported that a law practice which represents survivors of the attack […]
NINE armed bandits were killed Monday and one was injured and captured during a camel-back clash with police in West Sudan’s remote Darfur State, a Khartoum newspaper reported on Tuesday. Reporting from Darfur, Al-Rai Al-Aam daily quoted Kabkabiya province commissioner Hassan Kuna Azraq as saying the police force retrieved 25 cattle looted by the gangsters […]