Janet Smith The pigeons were shitting all over irreplaceable original artworks, so Lesley Cohn came up with a simple but brilliant solution to the problem: chicken wire in the eaves. If only the pungent details of The Bag Factory’s outstanding rates bill with the Transitional Metropolitan Council (TMC) were as obvious to unravel. More than […]

Max Gebhardt It’s hard to believe Brian Gilbertson was once of the opinion that unbundling wasn’t in the best interests of Gencor. Especially if you consider that he has taken Gencor by the scruff of the neck and given it a well- deserved shake. The once massive industrial conglomerate is now nothing more than a […]

Gavin Evans : Boxing Boxing’s geriatric decade may be ready for a new twist when Thulane “Sugarboy” Malinga fights Britain’s Robin Reid for the WBC supoer middleweight title on Friday night. Throughout his career Sugarboy has been such an erratic boxer that you never know who is going to turn up – the brilliant dazzler, […]

Ruaridh Nicoll The Himba chief stared at the anthropologist who had just asked him to describe what he did. A moment passed before he answered: “I attend meetings and I make love to my three wives.” The Himba wander the vastness of Namibia’s skeleton coast. They drink milk, wear calf- skins, and style their hair […]

Ellen Bartlett looks at the significance of the discovery of the bones of two children near Sterkfontein The question that probably will never be answered is how the bodies of two children ended up in a cave on the farm called Drimolen. Perhaps they died there, of cold, disease, starvation. Perhaps they died nearby, and […]

Swapna Prabhakaran Despite efforts at affirmative action, a large number of the country’s black graduates still find themselves unemployed, unlike their white counterparts. Recent statistics supplied by the Human Sciences Research Council and Central Statistical Service show that almost a quarter of the country’s black graduates in 1996 are now jobless, while almost 98% of […]

David Beresford talks to Desmond Tutu and finds the former archbishop is still a believer in the power of truth and redemption Desmond Tutu is a busy man. He has, after all, been agonising over whether to press the button which could send a former state president to prison. He is being bombarded with demands […]

They like Beethoven as much as Busta Rhymes and kwaito, and TKZee includes the first black member of the Drakensberg Boys’ Choir. Maria McCloy reports Ask anyone – I mean anyone, from South Africa’s hot producers to popular young artists and DJs to the average kid looking for a good time – what they’re getting […]

Robert Kirby : Loose cannon I would like to be among the first to rocket to the rescue of the reputation of Witwatersrand deputy judge president, HCJ Flemming. Talk about an irresponsible, a flagitious press, radio and television – never mind Raymond Louw. This last week or so poor Monas Flemming has had more scorn […]

Two Sandton-based ex-military generals of the late Mobutu Sese Seko have been held for travelling illegally, reports Ann Eveleth Two of former Zairean dictator Mobutu Sese Seko’s closest military cohorts – arrested in Johannesburg on Saturday – allegedly spoke openly about their plans to topple Mobutu’s successor, Laurent Kabila, in an uprising which had been […]