James Rupert in Kinshasa Three generations of Andre Miku’s family live in the concrete-block compound they have built over decades around a dirt yard and a mango tree. Of 11 people who live here, none has a formal job. Miku (70), a retired mechanic, receives a government pension of $7 a month. The family rents […]

Miles Keylock : Live in Cape Town Many fans of the present South African music explosion could be forgiven for wondering why a bunch of ageing gothic rockers like No Friends of Harry decided to reform for a final farewell tour of South Africa. I mean, after all, there are so many totally awesome new […]

David Hirst in Beirut President Liamine Zeroual’s decision to step down before the end of his five-year term looks likely to weaken Algeria’s military-based regime and further erode domestic and international confidence in its ability to end the gruesome civil war. The shock decision, announced last weekend, has plunged the country into new confusion and […]

David Shapshak Kabuki theatre, one of Japan’s most ancient and revered art forms, comes to South Africa for the first time this weekend. Renowned Kabuki actor Satojiro Wakayagi will perform the famed kagamijishi dance (the lion of new year’s banquet) at Sandton’s Theatre on the Square on Sunday night. Kabuki is quintessentially Japanese. A highly-stylised […]

Alex Sudheim : On show in Durban The residents of Emalendeni hostels are always hungry. The 90 physically-disabled children and youths living in the low, bleak buildings on the outskirts of Durban’s Umlazi township no longer receive food aid from the government, and survive on the 10 loaves of bread a day donated by a […]

It’s written in the stars, but only the experts can read it, and not everybody believes it. Jane Rosenthal visited astrologer Rod Suskin The day I made an appointment with Rod Suskin, I did not know that my father would die (I knew he was sick) and nor did I know that a devastating forest […]

Brenda Atkinson : On show in Johannesburg Looking at two Johannesburg exhibitions recently, it occurred to me that the position of the art critic – and of some artists – is increasingly one of impossibility. This is because one of the ironies of globalisation, transnationalism, and all those other terms that would suggest the dissolution […]

Howard Barrell : Over a Barrel One of our stranger habits as South Africans is to imagine the rest of the world owes us a living. It is not a feeling many readily admit to. It is more an underlying conviction which governs much of our political and economic behaviour. We did once represent a […]

Marthali Brand : First Person `That’s incredible. I would never be able to do that.” That’s the first thing most people say when they hear that I am a volunteer at a care centre for children with Aids. The second thing is: “Isn’t it tough to know that those children are going to die?” I […]

In New York you get whipped, in Thailand it’s real sex, but in Zimbabwe you just stock up on fantasies. Mercedes Sayagues meets the Warriors I don’t know what turns you on. But I know what turned on 500 Zimbabwean women last week: the muscular, sculpted bodies of six young South African hunks as they […]