These days, the Market Theatre management claims, people book tickets because they want to and not out of some obligation to the place that, once upon a time, changed South African culture. If you pop into the theatre now you’ll find a video monitor fixed to one of those pillars laden with brass plaques. The […]
airwaves Ferial Haffajee Allister Sparks is an unlikely Ted Turner. Other than the grey hair, the local journalist has until now had little in common with the American media magnate. Now Sparks is the driving force behind SABC-Africa, a 24-hour news channel going head-to-head with Turner’s CNN for supremacy of the African airwaves at least. […]
Alex Sudheim `Comedy is the new rock ‘n roll” goes the catchphrase of the moment. Young standups across the country are provoking audiences with a scabrous brand of humour that gleefully pokes and digs at society’s guilty secrets. As with the early days of rock ‘n roll, there is a spirit of anarchic, anti-establishment zeal; […]
The battle for Kindu is crucial to the course of the Congo war, writes Ann Eveleth and Howard Barrell This week’s battle for the mid-eastern town of Kindu in the Democratic Republic of Congo marks a turning point for the two-month-old civil war. A victory for the rebels would open the way for them to […]
The makers of South Africa’s foreign policy need a long, hard think, suggests William Boot The king of Lesotho is seldom permitted to make public utterances. But sometimes his private observations are passed on by friends and advisers – like what he said when he returned from the recent Southern African Development Community (SADC)summit in […]
Andy Capostagno Rugby The only certainties in life are death and taxes. So wrote Woody Allen, a man who would have difficulty just pronouncing Loftus Versfeld, let alone finding Pretoria on a map. But he would have sympathised with a few disgruntled punters who last weekend had their dreams shattered by a scoreline of Blue […]
Andy Capostagno Cricket A collective sigh of relief echoed through the corridors of power in the smaller unions this week when the United Cricket Board (UCB) decided not to impose a two-tier system on the Supersport Series. It was, by all accounts, the most conciliatory UCB meeting for years. The outcome was that, while note […]
CD of the week Michael Odell Sweeting Of course we knew there were two Ringos in the group. The Fugees, the biggest-selling rap group in the world, comprises two blokes employed to shout “One time!” and Lauryn Hill – who combines the singer/songwriter talents of Lennon and Macca. The Fugees was never the arena to […]
David Beresford Racism, it seems, is the bane of even the most civilised police forces. That, at least, is the experience of the man many would regard as the world’s top cop, who landed up in South Africa this week on something of a holiday from a race row which is threatening his job. Sir […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Thursday 5.00pm. THE Johannesburg Stock Exchange ended its four-day bull run on Thursday, dropping around 2,5% on profit taking, with sentiment suffering as extreme volatility infects Asian markets and European exchanges take big hits. The Dow Jones opened on a downward streak in the afternoon, rattled by recessionary fears and a […]