Harry Berkowitz in New York GIANNI VERSACE, an Italian dressmaker’s son, grew up to be founder and chief designer of a half-billion-dollar fashion empire with hundreds of outlets around the world, a line of fragrances and plans to sell part of the company to the public next year. But can that Milan-based company continue to […]

In the week that police Captain Jeff Benzien has been demonstrating to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission how he used to physically throttle political suspects it might seem incongruous to be agonising over the shortcomings of the press under apartheid — the “crimes” being, on the face of it, somewhat disparate. But in fact the […]

Now that the lights have been turned off and the circus has left town, it’s time to take a stone-cold sober look at the 1997 Standard Bank 1997 Standard Bank National Arts Festival. What went down in G’town … Gwen Ansell AFRICAN music started to look like hot property at the Grahamstown Festival – but […]

A new generation of central bankers, unfamiliar with the perils of high inflation, could prompt a new rush for the security of gold if the present obsession with paper money turns sour, warns Dan Atkinson in London THE scramble out of gold by the world’s central banks is not novel. We have sat through this […]

Government ministries have to develop a comprehensive jobs plan in time for the October summit, reports Madeleine Wackernagel WHILE the furore over the Basic Conditions of Employment Bill continues unabated, the Minister of Labour Tito Mboweni will have his hands full in the next two months with an additional task: overseeing the development of a […]

Fencing may have originated with the European aristocracy, but now it is flourishing in Mamelodi township FENCING: Julian Drew NOT so many years ago no black man without the speed of Hezekiel Sepeng would have ventured on to the Pretoria University campus inquiring whether he could join in with the sporting activities. A slower individual […]

JEFF BENZIEN’s torture of former Umkhonto weSizwe guerrilla Peter Jacobs was, he said, “robust and very long”. “The normal interview with you carried on for quite a while … It was obvious you were playing for time. It was then that I resorted to using the wet bag on you,” Benzien told his amnesty hearing. […]

Muting the instruments Previous Grahamstown jazz festivals have usually been followed by one South African musician or another sounding off to the press. In the past, artists have had gripes about pay, conditions and programming. This year, you heard none of that; we can guarantee it. But the post-festival silence doesn’t mean that everything in […]

Wally Mbhele A FORMER commander of Umkhonto weSizwe (MK) recently granted amnesty by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission allegedly tried to derail the amnesty applications of Jerry Richardson and other jailed members of the Mandela United Football Club. Yet Richardson, who is seeking amnesty for the murder of teenage activist “Stompie” Seipei and three other […]

ATHLETICS:Julian Drew FOR Frits Potgieter it was never a matter of if but rather when he would break into the big time – and that moment arrived somewhat unceremoniously at a low key athletics meeting in Sheffield, England on Tuesday night. Potgieter added more than two metres to his previous personal best of 61.98m in […]