Larry Elliott : A Second Look The Great Fire of London began in Pudding Lane and raged uncontrollably for days. When the flames died down, large parts of London had been reduced to smouldering heaps of ash. With the benefit of hindsight, the Great Fire was not a disaster. London recovered quickly and the authorities […]

Fiona Macleod Criminal charges will soon be laid against animal dealer Riccardo Ghiazza, who recently kidnapped 30 baby elephants from the Tuli bushlands in southern Botswana. Ghiazza is holding the elephants near Hartebeespoort Dam, with the intention of selling them to zoos and animal trainers. Rick Allen, manager of the wildlife unit of the National […]

Mark Coetzee : On show in Cape Town Dr Gotz Adriani, in his Joseph Beuys catalogue essay, states that, ”It was not without reason that [Beuys] denied his materials and demonstrations, and even his monuments, any form of permanence.” This exhibition not only demonstrates this point, but unfortunately denies any adequate representation of the artist, […]

Shirley Kossick The shortlist for this year’s Boeke Prize – the annual Exclusive Books marketing device – has something for everyone, from the lightweight to the very serious and from serial murder to genocide. A mixed bag indeed, which makes it all the more difficult to choose a winner since the six novels are so […]

Chiara Carter Achmat ”Boeta” Davids, Cape Town community worker, writer and academic, was the first cultural historian to reclaim Afrikaans as a language of the slaves rather than the colonisers. Davids died of a heart attack at the Muslim radio station Voice of the Cape earlier this week and was buried from Cape Town’s Long […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Thursday 10.00pm. REBELS from the Democratic Republic of Congo have accused the Southern African Development Community of “legitimising” President Laurent Kabila. In a propaganda war that is growing heated on all sides, the Congolese Democratic Coalition said in a press briefing in Midrand, near Johannesburg: “Granting legitimacy to the Kabila regime […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Kuala Lumpur | Thursday 8.30pm. SOUTH Africa will play a confident Australia in the cricket final at the Commonwealth Games, after the Australian team disposed of New Zealand in a crushing defeat in the semi-final on Thursday. Steve Waugh’s Australians warmed up for Saturday’s final with an emphatic nine-wicket win that was completed […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Thursday 4.00pm. DEMOCRATIC Republic of Congo President Laurent Kabila on Wednesday said he wants to hold elections in the country in April 1999 , but first must “boot out” invading troops. “We want to go to elections. It was set for April. For that we will have to boot the aggressor […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Cape Town | Thursday 9.00pm. A SAFETY system is needed that will warn of possible rockfalls and mudslides on Cape Town’s most scenic coastal drive, an engineering geologist told the Cape Town High Court on Thurday. Fredrick Stapelberg testified in a civil claim of more than R4- million against the Cape Metropolitan Council […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Harare | Thursday 4.00pm. THE Zimbabwean central bank on Thursday produced a damning report on black banker Roger Boka, and blames the government of bending banking licensing procedures to allow his underfunded bank to operate in the first place. The report into the collapse of Boka’s “indigenous” United Merchant Bank accuses Boka of […]