Sarah Bullen Russian-born director Sergei Bodrov saw the setting for his new feature film Hoofbeats, a big-budget production by Columbia TriStar Pictures, in Solitaire. Solitaire – best described as a tiny enclave somewhere in the middle of Namibia’s endless Namib desert – has very little going for it apart from a caf, a petrol station […]

provinces Ian Clayton Plans by the African Natonal Congress to downgrade provincial governments in favour of stronger municipalities will result in a constitutional fight that the party is bound to lose unless it has a clean sweap of Parliament and provincial legislatures in the June 2 election. Even then, it will take a major rethink […]

The Cannes Film Festival got off to an uneasy start last week with Nikita Mikhalkov’s saccharine three-hour melodrama The Barber Of Siberia, a movie with the epic qualities of a Russian winter. By the end of it, no peasant imagined the first shy blooms of springtime more fervently than we awaited the closing credits. Moreover, […]

Tangeni Amupadhi Namibian artists are outraged over what they call “apartheid-style censorship” rearing its head in their democratic country. The outrage was sparked by the Namibian government’s decision to withdraw financial support for a popular play scheduled to be staged at the Market Theatre in Johannesburg next week. The Ministry of Basic Education and Culture […]

There’s room for improvement at the South African Music Awards. Peter Makurube has some suggestions On May 13 the South African music industry took time off at the Sun City Superbowl to pat itself on the back. Unlike the cultural boycott busting days, the audience was at least representative of the country’s population. The who’s […]

Marianne Merten It was a bitter-sweet moment this week for 12 Cape Town families who finally received compensation for their homes and land lost to the Group Areas Act more than 30 years ago. Bitter, because most of them cannot return to the homes they lost when the apartheid government declared they were not white […]

THE Angolan state oil company, Sonangol, has signed a $575-million loan agreement with Union Bank of Switzerland, state television said in a broadcast monitored by the BBC. It said the four-year loan to Sonangol, backed by an oil sale contract between the Angolan oil company and British Petroleum, was signed in London on Tuesday.

Tom McGhie Computer games company Eidos has teamed up with rock star David Bowie, his wife Iman, and the best-selling author Michael Crichton in two deals designed to create hit games. Eidos has signed a long-term publishing deal with Timeline Studios, North Carolina, for games based on original material to be written by Timeline co-founder […]

was last week Andy Capostagno Rugby The sound of Newlands last Sunday was the sound of crumbs of comfort being swept up. Yes, the Stormers had lost to the Cats, but no one got badly injured, the bonus point for a close loss ensured a home semi-final and other results meant that the Crusaders were […]

MORE than 200 students at a teachers’ college in Mpumalanga have won a battle for better food after boycotting the campus caterers for two days. Rector of Mgwenya College of Education, Ian Steenkamp said on Thursday that the 240 students would now get good meals. Students had complained that vegetarians, for example, were fed only […]