Alex Clark The End of Alice by AM Homes (Anchor, R69,95) This novel, an everyday tale of paedophilia and child murder in middle-class America, is published in paperback plastered with the panegyrics of American critics, united mainly by their admiration for AM Homes’s horrifyingly “real” treatment of a taboo subject. At the same time, the […]

Success story Netscape posted a loss for the first time and axed 400 jobs last month, reports Mark Tran The trophies on display in the reception area of Netscape Communications testify to one of the most meteoric successes in Silicon Valley. Given by trade magazines, the awards cite Jim Clark and Marc Andreessen, who founded […]

Despite attempts by leaders to clean up corruption in Africa, graft remains the order of the day in many countries, reports Chris McGreal There was a time when Kinshasa Airport induced mild panic in all who contemplated its grubby portals. A cocktail of chaos, intimidation and outright threats usually helped denude visiting business people of […]

GROUP A (Ouagadougou) Feb 7: Burkina Faso v Cameroon; Feb 8: Algeria v Guinea; Feb 11: Cameroon v Guinea, Burkina Faso v Algeria; Feb 15: Burkina Faso v Guinea, Algeria v Cameroon GROUP B (Ouagadougou) Feb 9: Democratic Republic of Congo v Togo, Ghana v Tunisia; Feb 12: DR Congo v Tunisia, Ghana v Togo; […]

Once upon a time, long before the heady days of El Nino, South African TV drama was as soft as an English muffin and as wet as English weather. The Importance of Being Earnest and Charlie’s Aunt were the primary ingredients of our homemade white bread in the 1970s and 1980s — and you may […]

When a man’s gotta go … Charl Blignaut ‘You’re late,” barks Eleanor Moore as if she had stepped straight out of a bad movie and into the swish Radio 702 reception area. “Six minutes,” I want to say. “What’s six minutes?” But the powerhouse producer of John Berks’s late afternoon show is already heading down […]

Lesley Cowling : Material World Jetlag could be cured by shining a light behind your knees, say scientists who have discovered light-detecting equipment there. Experts in circadian rhythms, the daily nature cycles that cause flowers to open during the day, have found what they call “extraocular circadian phototransduction” behind the human knee. They tested 15 […]

FRIDAY, 8.00AM: PRETORIA Judge William De Villers on Thursday issued a summons to President Nelson Mandela to appear in court to explain his decision to appoint a commission of inquiry into rugby. The decision has alarmed the government, and Mandela’s legal adviser Nicholas Haysom said it will set a precedent, allowing anyone to challenge the […]

Eddie Butler : Rugby For all its reputation of being the dearest, dearest institution never to have been added to the government’s sacred “listed events”, the Five Nations Championship has a decidedly murky history. There may not have been much that even the home unions committee could do about the world wars that interrupted the […]

Maria McCloy The management of national music chain Musica and the advertising agency Jupiter Drawing Room are surprised by the “extreme” reaction to a Valentine’s Day poster campaign that went up on Friday January 23 and was torn down by Monday January 26. Four naked couples in loving embraces, each accompanied by appropriate words from […]