She fled Pinochet’s junta and began to write as a way of coping with exile and loss. She became a best-selling novelist but her masterpiece was a memoir of her daughter, who died at 26. Maya Jaggi on a feminist pioneer of Latin American literature Isabel Allende divides her life starkly into two: before and […]

Matthew Krouse CD of the week ‘The purpose of this album is to invite the world to discover the authentic, dynamic underground sound of the Japanese and European new jazz scene.” Oh, all right then – whatever that means – let’s turn it on. With such a heady pitch, brashly reckoning that the album is […]

John Naughton Here is a story to make megacorp executives choke on their muesli: eToys.com, a huge online retailer of toys based in California, has been humiliated by a civil disobedience campaign orchestrated by a community of Internet activists. Late last year, eToys made the mistake of suing a group of Swiss multimedia artists and […]

Evidence wa ka Ngobeni South Africa’s oldest leper colony is to be turned into a top tourism attraction in Gauteng, with lavish five star hotels, nature parks, and an up-market shopping mall. Last year the Gauteng Department of Health said the 125-year-old hospital, West Fort, was outdated and should be sold off to the private […]

Peter Dickson Eastern Cape MEC for Education Stone Sizani has promised to throw the province’s farm schools a R13,9-million lifeline after being subpoenaed by the Human Rights Commission (HRC) to explain his failure to fund the schools. The HRC has issued two previous subpoenas to Sizani since late last year, but in both instances he […]

Marianne Merten The alleged bogeyman behind Cape drive-by shootings – Ebrahim Jenneker of People against Gangsterism and Drugs (Pagad) – will stand trial on 124 charges ranging from murder to malicious damage to property in the Cape High Court from Monday. For more than six months he has been moved between different Cape jails following […]

Charlene Smith CROSSFIRE TV presenter Tracey Going is porcelain-doll pretty, and it was those looks film-maker Richard Latham threatened to destroy when he beat her up two-and-a-half years ago. This week Latham, a millionaire and recovering crack addict, was sentenced to a R5E000 fine or one year in jail suspended for five years for beating […]

A collaboration between Cape Town Tourism and other stakeholders has resulted in a musical tour of Cape townships. Karen Rutter got on the bus Weaving through throngs of home-bound pedestrians disgorged from hyperactive taxis, our mini-bus looked no different from all the others servicing evening rush-hour commuters. Except for the tour guide up front, and […]

Former president Nelson Mandela will mark the 10th anniversary on Friday of his release from 27 years in apartheid jails by opening a museum.

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Lagos | Friday 5.30pm. BAFANA Bafana coach Trott Moloto is almost certain to be out of a job when his contract expires at the end of the African Nations Cup. Moloto, coach for almost two years, has come under heavy criticism for his 3-5-2 tactics during the 2-0 semi-final defeat by Nigeria on […]