Steven Friedman worm’s eye view If Martians ask you to take them to our leader, try Lucas Radebe. The Bafana captain is a more plausible source of national leadership than any of our politicians. Our lack of leadership is of some importance. We have descended into the politics of meanness, of bad-tempered bickering as we […]
James Hall In traditional Swazi culture, when death or illness strike, a supernatural cause is suspected. A physical condition may be the agent of destruction, but it is set in motion by malignant people, invariably using witchcraft. When a Swazi king falls ill, those who are in close proximity to him, from palace staff to […]
Pule waga Mabe Some South African politicians backed this week’s controversial Civil Society Initiative (CSI) conference, despite the call by the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) and other civil society formations for a boycott. Minister of Defence Mosiuoa Lekota was among those invited to speak who didn’t show up. But among those who […]
Robert Colman Lifestyle Two homegrown enterprises and a French import have brought fresh life to the Johannesburg suburb of Troyeville. If you aren’t a local it’s well worth crossing the northern suburbs curtain to try them. First stop is the Spaza Art Gallery. Artist Andrew Lindsay has gathered a rich network of young talent from […]
Enjoyment of wine can be increased by just a bit of knowledge, says accountantturnedwine seller Vaughan Johnson Marianne Merten Cape wines, Cuban cigars and dinky brandy bottles shaped like Table Mountain are proving an irresistible mix at Vaughan Johnson’s shop, together with its?friendly service and expert advice. For more than 10 years the shop at […]
Anthony Holiday a second look The Hainan Island spy-plane incident may be over but in foreign ministries, embassies and policy think-tanks the whole world over its full implications are only beginning to unravel. When the Chinese fighter pilot Wang Wei lost his life and became a national hero by colliding with a United States EP-3 […]
Short Cuts Bedazzled. Like Ally McBeal, very thin and quite funny. With Elizabeth Hurley. Billy Elliot. Marvellous tale of a workingclass boy who wants to be a ballet dancer. Bounce. Terrible romance that should have been called Boring. Starring Ben Affleck and Gwyneth Paltrow. The Broken Hearts Club. A group of gay men negotiate that […]
Peter Robinson Lifting the Covers: The Inside Story of South African Cricket by Luke Alfred (Spearhead) Luke Alfred quit his jobs as The Star and The Sunday Independent’s senior cricket writer earlier this year a decision that may or may not have been connected with the imminent publication of this book. Whatever the case, I […]
Martin Gillingham road running It must have been difficult for Elana Meyer last Sunday as she sat in front of the television in her Stellenbosch home and watched her oldest rival win the greatest marathon in the world. The reason for Meyer’s absence from the London Marathon, or indeed its Boston equivalent six days earlier, […]
An imam from the Cape Flats has found a prison buddy in Allan Boesak Marianne Merten Prison has brought together two religious leaders a soft-spoken imam, who is accused of conspiring to murder a magistrate, and vocal liberation cleric Allan Boesak, serving time for fraud and theft. Imam Gasant Moos is detained in a cell […]
Barry Streek Five remote Richtersveld communities, whose claim for the return of land on the Cape West Coast near the Gariep river was recently rejected by the Land Claims Court, have submitted an application to appeal to the Constitutional Court. Their application says the appeal raises constitutional issues of substance on which a ruling by […]
Fiona Macleod American pro-hunting lobbies are calling in the big guns to put pressure on the Botswana government to lift a ban on hunting lions in the Southern African country. George Bush, former United States president and father of current President George W Bush, heads up a lobby group convened by Safari Club International (SCI), […]
PAUL KIRK, Durban | Thursday HUNDREDS of dud armoured vehicles bought from a major British arms supplier are being scrapped by the South African Police Service. The vehicles, called Scouts, are being taken out of service as they are not considered safe, economical, cost-effective or suitable for the purposes for which they were designed. Instead […]
I’d love to be proven wrong in my belief that Phumelela’s revamped superfecta bet will be every bit as neglected as the original. Trying to select the first six runners past the post, besides being tedious, is also dangerous, especially with the betting unit raised from 10c to R1 with a minimum 10% fractional bet […]
The Department of Finance believes the rand could sink as low as R26 to the United States dollar by 2018, after dropping to about R14,9 to the dollar by 2010. The department’s affordability study of the arms deal provides a rare insight into an official line on the future of the currency. The study, drafted […]
Olympic Group was the final yacht to sail into Cape Town to complete the fifth leg of the BTGlobal Challenge Marianne Merten ‘If you let the position ruin it you are actually losing the plot. We are learning about ourselves, working together, communicating,” says Olympic Group skipper Manley Hopkinson about participating in the BT Global […]
Nawaal Deane It has been almost 10 years since the Office for Serious Economic Offences (OSEO) began investigating allegations that attorney Ntehdi Bogoshi defrauded clients who were making claims against the Multilateral Motor Vehicle Fund. He has yet to be charged. The reason for this decade-long delay, according to the Directorate of Public Prosecutions, is […]
Matthew Krouse Agfa Theatre on the Square, Sandton Square. Neil McCarthy returns to stage writing with The Great Outdoors, a tense but tender psychodrama starring Isidingo’s Jamie Bartlett. Tickets at Computicket (www.computicket.com) or Tel: 883 8606. Barney Simon Theatre, Market Theatre complex, Newtown Cultural Precinct. Sweat on Somerset is a 70minute docuperformance about real life […]
David Beresford Another Country This space has had to be used again this week to accommodate the heated debate over the merits, or otherwise of Another Country, the column that usually fills it. Regretfully, after receiving a letter from David Beresford’s representatives, we are compelled to regard the subject as having now been fully ventilated […]
This time we ask this question in the knowledge that it is on the lips of many South Africans, many of them dedicated members of the ANC, SACP and the trade unions … Whether in his dealings with the Aids crisis surely the greatest threat ever to the country his timidity over Zimbabwe, or his […]
Barry Streek Many prominent Cape Town companies still own dismal hostels in the city’s townships and are hindering the redevelopment plans of the city council. Thousands of people are cramped into the decrepit and unhygienic buildings described as “appalling” by a development organisation helping to upgrade them. In the apartheid era the government actively encouraged […]
AN Angolan army helicopter crashed at the weekend in central Angola, killing five of its 13 passengers, most of them military personnel, the Portuguese news agency Lusa said on Monday. A military official interviewed by the agency said the fate of the eight other passengers aboard the Russian-built helicopter that crashed on Saturday was unknown. […]
LIBYAN leader Moamer Kadhafi and Namibian President Sam Nujoma met on Monday and stressed the “importance of African unity,” Libyan television reported. Nujoma, who arrived in Tripoli on Monday, discussed the setting up of pan-African institutions and bilateral relations with Colonel Kadhafi, one of the most ardent proponents of such ideas on the continent. The […]
THE Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) on Wednesday called on President Thabo Mbeki to declare amnesty for all former freedom fighters on Freedom Day. PAC deputy president Motsoko Pheko said a number of such prisoners were languishing in the prisons of the “new South Africa”. He accused the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of being biased in […]
AN outbreak of meningitis that is sweeping across Africa has killed at least 3_500 people, the international Red Cross said on Wednesday. “From the Red Sea to the Atlantic Ocean, a total of 38_000 cases have been documented, but many more are likely to have gone unreported,” said the International Federation of Red Cross and […]
A MAN who pleaded guilty to skinning and beheading a dog was sentenced by a North Carolina court to three years probation and ordered to read the “Lassie” books. Jason Vincent Revels, 19, was charged with felony animal cruelty in the November death of his mother’s mixed pit bull. At a hearing on Monday, Revels […]
THE captain and crew of a vessel suspected of ferrying children destined for slavery appeared in a Benin court on Monday, judicial sources said in the capital Cotonou. The investigating magistrate in charge of a probe into the status of 43 minors aboard the ship heard Nigerian Lawrence Oghototuya and his crew, who had been […]
EMMANUEL DEFOULOY, Brussels | Wednesday DECADES before the 1994 Rwandan genocide an anti-Tutsi apartheid created a mind-set in school children that Tutsis were a sub-human class, a middle-aged Tutsi woman in tears told a jury in an historic trial here this week. The system created both “consenting victims and potential executioners,” the woman, who escaped […]
A 61-year-old South African man who was fitted with an external artificial heart died on April 15 in Cape Town’s City Park Hospital, the facility disclosed on Monday. The man, who had asked not to be identified, was given the heart – a pump made from polyurethane with two ventricles – by a 10-member team […]
BELGIAN military intelligence has uncovered an illegal diamond trafficking network between Antwerp’s huge diamond market and Angolan guerrillas using the gems to buy arms, the Belgian daily Le Soir said on Monday. Le Soir said a secret military report entitled “Diamond trafficking from Angola, Belgium’s role,” contends that certain Belgian diamond merchants are dealing directly […]
PRESSURE is mounting on Swazi authorities to disclose the nature of King Mswati IIIs protracted illness following unconfirmed media reports that he was poisoned. A religious leader accused the government of fuelling public despondency by hiding the facts surrounding the 33-year-old kings illness. “They must disregard the culture of secrecy because the king is the […]
TWO very loud explosions rocked the Ethiopian capital late on Sunday, blasts which the police immediately attributed to artillery fired in error. State radio, citing Addis Ababa police, said that “the RPG (rocket-propelled grenades) mortar shots were fired accidentally.” There was no loss of life and no material damage, the radio said. Shortly after the […]