currency Martin Walker in Brussels looks at what the coming year holds in store for Europe The last year of the millennium is for Europeans the first year of the new order. Everything changes, starting with the birth of the single currency and the launch of the German presidency of the European Council. If the […]

At the age of 102, Sholipi Mbutu has outlived all but one of her children, writes Swapna Prabhakaran Not many people remember Sholipi Mbutu’s name. At 102, she’s been an old woman for so long, everyone calls her Gogo. Mbutu lives with her daughter in a tiny house 40km from the coastal town of Kwambonambi, […]

Andy Capostagno Cricket The West Indies lost the second Test so badly that logic dictates the only way is up. But cricket is not always a logical game, even if it is sometimes extremely predictable. There has been talk of regeneration, but it would take an optimist of Pollyanna proportions to believe that the third […]

knowledgeable you really are How clued up are you on the highs and lows, ins and outs of 1998? Test your skills with this brain-teaser 1 President Nelson Mandela made a special concession to pay the lawyers of an infamous politician more than double the going rate to prepare for a Truth and Reconciliation Commission […]

Patricia Whitelock Perhaps it’s because we have 10 fingers and work on a decimal system that numbers and intervals of time like 10 and decade, 100 and century or 1 000 and millennium seem to have such significance. This probably explains the interest in the beginning of the new millennium, but not the controversy associated […]

Belinda Beresford Assuming the near-mythical millennium bug doesn’t wipe out your bank account or erase all traces of you in your pension fund, handling money in the year 2000 will have moved on more than a little from the start of this century. Cheques, notes and even coins are going the way of the gold […]

report card NELSON MANDELA President Grade: A Few people in recorded history have been the subject of such high expectations; still fewer have matched them; Mandela has exceeded them. We knew of his fortitude before he left jail; we have since experienced his extraordinary reserves of goodwill, his sense of fun and the depth of […]

Things are looking up for the local film industry, writes Andrew Worsdale At this year’s Sithengi, Cape Town’s film and video market, Zimbabwean producer Joel Phiri said of South African cinema: “There’s a lot of cinema, but there’s not much on the screen.” Sithengi is, of course, one of the many strong initiatives that have […]

Free State Matthew Krouse Some feelings cannot be explained, they just have to be absorbed. For a Jew, like me, to meander through a small town in quest of the Christmas spirit on a sweltering Sunday feels quite odd. Even if the town is called Bethlehem, and the Sunday happens to be five days before […]

A `necessary pretence’ seems common practice in politics worldwide. David Beresford wonders if South Africa will suffer the same fate The most intriguing aspect of Thabo Mbeki’s recently released collection of speeches (Africa, the Time Has Come, Tafelberg Mafube, R80) is not the speeches, but the introduction which contains a brief biography of the man, […]