Wonder Hlongwa South Africa’s branch of the international corruption watchdog Transparency International has accused certain newspapers of feeding public perceptions that corruption increased after the African National Congress took power. In its first report since its inception last year, Transparency International South Africa (Tisa) accuses the newspapers of being influenced by their political agendas. It […]

Anthony Holiday Over a Barrel The secret malaise is no longer concealable. Its symptoms are manifest everywhere from conclaves in Cape Town to the conflict in the Congo. South Africa’s Department of Foreign Affairs – and hence also Deputy President Thabo Mbeki and President Nelson Mandela himself – are taking decisions and engaging in the […]

Keith Thomas ON HISTORY by Eric Hobsbawm (Abacus) Eric Hobsbawm turned 80 last year. He is probably the best-known living British historian, certainly the one whose work has been translated into the most languages. He brings to his historical writing some outstanding gifts: a probing intelligence, exceptional analytic power, great linguistic facility and an extremely […]

Arundhati Roy took the literary world by storm last year with her first novel, The God of Small Things, which won the Booker prize. In her first piece of writing since then, she expresses her horror at the nuclear arms race in her native India “The desert shook,” the government of India informed us (its […]

Will Hutton A Second Look Ever since the financial crisis erupted in Thailand last June, the consensus view in the West has consistently misunderstood and played down the dimensions of what is now the most serious threat to the world economy since World War II. The calamitous misdiagnosis has reinforced the West’s leaders in their […]

A noisy office is not only irritating, it can affect your work performance, writes Peter Baker Colleagues talking, telephones ringing, e-mails bleeping, photocopiers whirring: these everyday sounds make up an “acoustic wallpaper” in most offices -and one that can affect productivity and stress levels. Noise impairs people’s ability to perform simple tasks such as remembering […]

Melvyn Minnaar Wine Versace probably would have liked this. While certainly not flamboyantly haute couture, Versus would have appealed to him and Donnatella, who would not have turned down a glass or two of this prt- a-porter wine. And not only because it too goes under the same name as their garments and potions for […]

Nicholas Dawes Parties in Cape Town `Fuck dance, let’s art” is something like a family motto for the hip UK record label Ninja Tune, and it was unsurprising to find it on a flyer for Friday’s SEXsmorgasbord party at the similarly hip Take Four Bistro. This may seem an unlikely manifesto from the people responsible […]

Michael Finch Commonwealth Games Dope tests on lawn bowlers? Believe it. That’s how serious the South African team is taking its participation in the Commonwealth Games starting in Kuala Lumpur next week. Despite 13 medal-melting withdrawals, including athletics gold medal certainty Llewellyn Herbert, the team will travel to their second Commonwealth Games almost sure to […]

Moulded into the plastic soles of my father’s bedroom slippers were the words: “Man-made Materials.” As a child, I pondered that phrase for years. What, exactly, is a man-made material? Where did “man” get the stuff he “made” it from? And if he got it from somewhere and merely melted it down with something else, […]