In the hotseat at Midi TV Swapna Prabhakaran At first glance, Jonathan Proctor does not look much like the television executive he is. He wears no tie and has an open, immediately likeable face. He looks controlled and calm – he could be an aeroplane pilot or a professional golfer just off the green. Look […]

Arnab Neil Sengupta : A Second Look For weeks now, the Congressional Budget Office and the White House have been crowing about the United States government’s first budget surplus in 30 years. The rough estimate – $8-billion – is small change by US standards, but it is likely to grow over several years. Whether this […]

Telebook, a recently launched international online bookstore, has established a Cape Town branch. Adatabase of more than 1,2-million books can be searched, by title, author, key word, subject, publisher or ISBN number. At present there are four databases: English, German, Spanish, and Dutch titles, with the addition of Afrikaans and French soon to take place. […]

Toni Morrison is America’s most famous black writer. Her latest novel, Paradise, is being hailed as her best yet. Katharine Viner spoke to her There are 3 000 people in the Midland Theatre, Kansas City, and the place is packed to the gods. They are here for Toni Morrison, black America’s most famous novelist, and […]

Janet Smith speaks to the first South African writer/director to have a short film accepted for screening by Ster-Kinekor Gavin Hood was an accidental hero when he took on his first (and only) pin-up role in The Game, the South African rugby soap which was slightly ahead of its time when it was screened in […]

Adam Haupt : On stage in Cape Town Graham Weir’s Tales from the Dark Side takes us into the sort of twilight zone world which odd people such as Ray Bradbury depict. Many devoted television addicts will recall Bradbury’s series, which often told very twisted tales. But Tales from the Dark Side is very far […]

Tracy Murinik : On show in Cape Town A note on the door advises that ”It is about truth and reconciliation”, while simultaneously warning against sensitive visual material and reminding one to respect the fact that one is entering a home. Hush … Hush, ”a love story”, begins on the stairwell that leads up to […]

Charl Blignaut : On stage in Johannesburg Considering the dismal state of our major urban arts councils – the Pact board is to be re-transformed, while in Cape Town and Durban cutbacks have left administrators with virtually no artists to administer – it is nothing short of a coup that the North West Arts Council […]

THURSDAY, 11.30AM: THE Independent Broadcasting Authority is coming under fire for irregular actions in awarding the first free-to-air television licence to Midi TV. Losing consortiums and commentators in the broadcasting industry are alleging that the IBA bent the rules of the registration process to allow Midi to alter its business plan after registration. “The IBA […]

IN BRIEF BABY SMUGGLER PLEADS GUILTY A SOUTH African woman accused of accidentally smothering her baby to death while trying to smuggle her into the United States will plead guilty to charges of alien smuggling, her defence attorney Dan Oliverio said on Thursday. Galiema Begg agreed to plead guilty in the hope of getting a […]