FRIDAY, 8.30AM: LOW-KEY Gerald Morkel became the most powerful coloured person in the National Party when he defeated his flamboyant opponent Peter Marais on Thursday night to become party leader in the Western Cape, the last remaining NP stronghold. But Morkel’s first few hours of power gave him little chance to savour his success: First, […]

FRIDAY, 5.00PM: THOUSANDS of Rwandans gathered in the capital Kigali to witness the execution of four people convicted of inciting acts of genocide in the 1994 massacre of almost a million Tutsis. Another 18 prisoners were executed by firing squad in four other outlying towns. Preparations for the executions of three men and one women […]

Janet Smith Pianistically, Paul Hanmer is beautiful. His music – folkloric, occasionally proletarian, always warm and real – is not a private dominion or a place where culture is combat. His music, as experienced on his celebrated Sheer Sound debut album Trains to Taung, has reached into the South African jazz community like a hand […]

Charlene Smith The government has launched a R10-million marketing assistance scheme to help entrepreneurs market South African tourism more aggressively worldwide. The International Tourism Marketing Assistance Scheme run by the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism compensates entrepreneurs active in tourism for some costs incurred when encouraging foreigners to visit South Africa. The scheme provides […]

Andy Capostagno Tennis It’s just possible that you may have been lured into the belief that there is a tennis tournament going on in Johannesburg this week. Six of the finest players in women’s tennis are battling it out for $200 000 in prize money and you can witness all the action for as little […]

Shaun de Waal Raeford Daniel, who died last week, aged 66, of a heart attack, had a long and distinguished career in the South African press. As a critic he accomplished the greatest of the critic’s tasks: helping to shape our communal artistic consciousness. He started his journalistic career at The Friend in Bloemfontein in […]

Bongani Siqoko The United Rugby Club, the only senior black club affiliated to the Golden Lions Rugby Football Union, is preparing to take the organisation to the human rights commission. Club chair and former vice-chair of the then Transvaal Rugby Union, Brian van Rooyen, says the club took this decision this week because its team […]

Pallo Jordan: CROSSFIRE The black (African, Indian and coloured) political movements that pioneered the democratic struggle were initially led by an educated elite who had embraced democracy and modernism as universal visions. “Modernism” has been used in two senses, one technological, the other socio-political. Its technological dimension assumed humanity would incrementally attain mastery over nature […]

Suzy Bell Six guitarists, all fluent in French – yet decidedly South African. Doctors, artists, teachers, a lawyer and a sailor – a Durban writers’ circle. Over a year, every two weeks, they met in caf,s, restaurants and private homes to mull over words, sip whisky, write and rewrite until they created Unwrapped – irreverent […]

Marion Edmunds When retired Western Cape premier Hernus Kriel heads off on his caravan tour of South Africa, he sets off comfortable, he says, in the knowledge that his party will rule the Western Cape into the next century. Kriel bowed out of provincial politics this week, with a crocodile tear and a Cheshire-cat smile, […]