ANDY CAPOSTAGNO, Johannesburg | Friday 6.00pm. A CAPTAIN’S innings from Pieter Strydom and a remarkable assault from Tyron Henderson helped Border to recover from 113-6 to 260-8 at the close of the first day of the Supersport Series final against Gauteng at the Wanderers. Strydom, who made a pair in last year’s final against Western […]

Gregory Mthembu-Salter United Nations Security Council members are currently adding the finishing touches to a resolution on the deployment of a UN force in the Democratic Republic of Congo. This follows a request for troops from UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, and an impassioned appeal for assistance from African heads of state and government representatives, […]

I am snowed-in in the United States, and although it is initially quite exciting, the novelty begins to fade as the implications begin to sink in.

Brenda Atkinson Mixed Media A couple of months ago, an excitable tide of telltale rippled through the Johannesburg ad industry. Mike Schalit, creative director at Net#work and outgoing chair of the Creative Directors’ Forum (CDF), had called upon all CDF affiliated agencies to take up the cudgels for creativity in this country by toppling John […]

Matthew Krouse The fake stones that built Sun City, its intentionally haphazard forestry and its pretentious pools that look like ruins are part of the general lie it lives. Here, in the sad old North-West province – we’re supposed to pretend – a playful, lost African civilisation put down roots that can now be explored […]

Howard Barrell CONSOLIDATING DEMOCRACY: SOUTH AFRICA’S SECOND POPULAR ELECTION by Tom Lodge (Witwatersrand University Press) AFRICAN DEMOCRACY IN THE ERA OF GLOBALISATION by Jonathan Hyslop (Witwatersrand University Press) When people start talking of “miracles” to explain unexpected political developments, one can usually smell intellectual surrender. For, if they are anything, miracles are supposed to be […]

What’s new? The lovely Ananova will soon be reading the news on the Press Association’s website – and working 24 hours a day without any breaks for eating or sleeping or visiting the bathroom. She is a vactor (virtual actor) or “synthespian” created by Digital Animations, and she uses text-to-speech software from Lernout & Hauspie. […]

Telford Vice looks at the shenanigans behind the resignation of United Cricket Board president Ray White The covers were peeled off South African cricket at the weekend, and the cracks in the exposed surface were more than superficial. On Saturday, Ray White bowed to pressure from within and resigned as president of the United Cricket […]

ST ELMO’s restaurant in Camps Bay, Cape Town, which was ripped apart by a pipe-bomb explosion in November, was on Thursday provisionally liquidated after its insurers refused to pay its claim. The restaurant owners applied for provisional liquidation, saying they are operating at a loss, and thus can not meet their business obligations. But insurers […]

Guy Willoughby speaks to Marthinus Basson about his latest collaboration with poet/playwright Breyten Breytenbach Marthinus Basson – design-directorial supremo, arts propagandist, all-round theatre maestro – is snatching coffee and koek between final rehearsals of The Life and Times of Johnny Cockroach, his latest explosive collaboration with poet-turned- playwright Breyten Breytenbach. Restlessly pacing the noisy Nico […]