President Nelson Mandela returned from his gruelling trip to the United States and Canada on Sunday.

Maureen Barnes Down the tube The Emmy Awards – the Hollywood TV industry’s mutual back-scratching night out – took three-and- a-half hours to screen, and this was the edited version. In that amount of time, I imagine, the Almighty created a sizeable chunk of the earth and the creatures thereon. Having been caught before, I […]

Ferial Haffajee Brussels and Paarl are worlds apart. One is cold and rich. The other poor and hot. Brussels is also the site of trade negotiations between South Africa and the European Union which has 400-million consumers in 15 countries. An agreement could have a huge impact, bringing Paarl and South African industry more firmly […]

Nic Paul On show in Durban What becomes of the sons of great men? Greatness seldom strikes the same family twice, and almost never one generation after the next (some South African examples, like the Tutus and the Ruperts come easily to mind here) and it’s an interesting question which Mahatma vs Gandhi doesn’t try […]

Sechaba ka’Nkosi Mutinous Lesotho Defence Force (LDF) soldiers sympathetic to opposition parties are removing arms from military bases in preparation for a prolonged war against the allied forces of the Southern African Development Community (SADC). The soldiers have retreated strategically to the mountains where they have been able to delay the fall of their Makonyane […]

Barbara Ludman POINT OF ORIGIN by Patricia Cornwell (Little, Brown) Patricia Cornwell’s life generally spills over into her books. In this one, it threatens to take the book over. She’s made a background theme of the FBI’s prurient interest in its agents’ affairs ever since she was named as co-respondent in a divorce suit lodged […]

Ferial Haffajee TopSport chief executive officer Edward Griffiths has landed a cushy agreement with the SABC which would see him working in South Africa for one week a month. The SABC has met negotiators who want to buy TopSport – its basket of television sports programmes – which is about to make a profit for […]

There’s a growing sense that in an unstable world, Libya’s `Brother Leader of the Revolution’ has some attractions, writes Ian Black Moammar Gadaffi was busy this month, embracing African leaders as they flew in for the lavish celebrations, held each year, of the coup that brought him to power in 1969. Without his customary comic-opera, […]

Paul Whelan and David Schmidt Across the world, societies wrestle with the problems of how best to govern their metropolitan conurbations, so critical to national economies and the livelihoods of millions of people. Metropolitan governance is a difficult and rather messy affair. Metros are complex, they tend to concentrate major social problems, they outgrow their […]

Raymond Joseph Police say Mark Thatcher will be subpoenaed as a state witness in the fraud and theft trial of officers who acted as “bookrunners” for his failed money-lending business. Police say 11 of Thatcher’s runners have been identified. At least three runners will appear in court by the middle of next month, and others […]