New video for South African Tumi and The Volume’s ‘Asinamali’. You know what ‘Asinamali’ stands for, right?
Revolt
May 17, 2011 By 1 Comment
Voltz‘s reading of Johannesburg. A first track and video from his upcoming album ‘Revolt’.
‘The Price of Gold’
May 17, 2011 By 1 Comment
From photographer Robin Hammond’s images of Zimbabweans working at small scale, illegal gold mines in neighboring Mozambique.
The full set on his website, which also includes series on South Africa, the DRC, and the mentally ill in South Sudan.
H/T Jonathan Faull
The first Afrikaans film at Cannes
May 17, 2011 By 3 Comments
Finally a teaser for the film “Skoonheid,” by Cape Town director, Oliver Hermanus, is now online. Billed as the first Afrikaans film to compete at the Cannes Film Festival, the film also finally screened earlier today at Cannes. That means the first mainstream reviews are in. They’re mixed. Here are some excerpts from the reviews as well as links:
Robot Artists
May 17, 2011 By Leave a Comment
“Robot Artists” is a short documentary by African Cartel showcasing a group of Zimbabwean artists who’s marketplace and livelihood is a traffic light intersection in Cape Town, South Africa.
Moonwalk
May 17, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Last month Kevin-Prince Boateng, the AC Milan midfielder and Ghana international, promised that if his team won Italy’s Serie A, he would perform a Michael Jackson dance routine in full costume in front of the club’s thousands of fans. This weekend the club did just that and post-match Boateng kept his promise. Then an Italian football pundit decided he’d challenge Boateng.
War Photographer
May 17, 2011 By Leave a Comment
New York magazine has a series of 29 images of and by war photographers, including Joao Silva, the South African photographer who lost his legs after stepping on a land mine in Afghanistan. Silva, is “… taking steps on his new prosthetic legs and hopes to be home in Johannesburg and working again soon, though likely not again in conflict zones.”
Buy Zimbabwe on eBay
May 17, 2011 By 7 Comments
Actually old Zimbabwe dollars. It’s a fad and collectors are paying thousands of US dollars for it.
Crazy Bald Heads
May 16, 2011 By 2 Comments
In case you missed it, The New York Times carried a story this weekend about how Eric Prince, former founder and CEO of Blackwater Worldwide, the company that dominated private contracting in Iraq and whose men have been accused of murdering innocent Iraqis, is working with the royal family of the United Arab Emirates to form a mercenary army: “… The force is intended to conduct special operations missions inside and outside the country, defend oil pipelines and skyscrapers from terrorist attacks and put down internal revolts … Such troops could be deployed if the Emirates faced unrest in their crowded labor camps or were challenged by pro-democracy protests like those sweeping the Arab world this year.” The US government, as usual, is ambivalent about the mercenary force and the royal family are big US allies.
But there’s a small detail that caught my eye. They’re mostly recruiting from former US soldiers and those who served in the armies of dictatorships like Apartheid South Africa: “… some veterans of Executive Outcomes, a South African company notorious for staging coup attempts or suppressing rebellions against African strongmen in the 1990s.”
You can read about it in The New York Times.
