cellphone What to do before and after your phone is stolen: l Turn on your phone and type *#06# – you will see your 15-digit IMEI number. Record it. l If your cellphone is stolen, phone your service provider to cancel the SIM card so the thief cannot dial out. Get a case number from […]

CD of the week Adam Sweeting The idea that Brian Wilson could ever again approximate his own back- catalogue masterpieces has grown increasingly laughable. There was the critically-feted Orange Crate Art in 1995, but that was really a Van Dyke Parks project cunningly disguised as a Brian Wilson album. While it’s true that Wilson has […]

invasion Swapna Prabhakaran Some political allies of the African National Congress have remained strangely silent in the wake of the destruction of Maseru that resulted from South Africa’s military intervention in Lesotho last week. While the ANC’s highest organs have supported the intervention, its alliance partners appeared unable to draft a quick response. Human rights […]

Phillip Kakaza If there is one African city that keeps abreast of the latest fashion trends, it is Johannesburg. And it’s not only clothes that count, but hairstyles too. The busy streets of Johannesburg have become catwalks. A stroll downtown or in Soweto is like a trip down a Parisian boulevard, with clothes and hairdos […]

Paul Brown Evolution is saving elephants in Africa by producing herds with tiny tusks or none at all – which provides no profit for poachers and thus ensures the survival of the species. The phenomenon has been noticed in all parts of Africa where hunting has been going on longest, with both trophy hunters and […]

Andy Capostagno Rugby A few weeks ago I was lamenting the fact that after a promising beginning the Currie Cup had gone a little flat. Anyone who saw Sunday’s 24-17 win for Free State over Western Province at Newlands may well have concurred. We have reached that stage of the season where results are far […]

#Ferial Haffajee `I’ve got an aunty like that!” hooted a member of the audience at a recent Johannesburg performance of A Coloured Place, the side-splitting play that has brought its twentysomething writer/director Lueen Conning into the cultural limelight. Side-splitting, that is, until you think a little and then the reflection sets in. “It’s too close […]

Belinda Beresford Something is rotten in the state of South African business. The legacy of the old South Africa has been disrespect for the law and a culture of entitlement, and the past influences the present. Ahead of the latest round of awards to companies that do business honestly and openly, some of the seedier […]

politics Cameron Duodu: LETTER FROM THE NORTH The Democratic Republic of Congo has always aroused two contradictory emotions in me as an African: the ecstasy created in the soul by appreciation of some of the best music on the continent, and the fear and anger aroused in the mind by irrational, blood-spattered politics that resurfaces […]

Robert McCrum talks to his long-time friend Salman Rushdie as he emerges from the shadow of the fatwa `I didn’t expect to survive,” says Salman Rushdie. “I didn’t expect to live.” We are sitting alone in the office of anti-censorship group Article 19’s director, Frances D’Souza, in the aftermath of a sweaty press conference at […]