With javelin star Tom Petranoff helping them, South Africa’s disabled athletes are leading the way in throwing events, writes Julian Drew SOUTH AFRICA’S most successful group of international sportsmen and women will hold their national championships at Pilditch Stadium in Pretoria this weekend, and with places in the team for the Paralympics in Atlanta on […]

MUSIC: Gwen Ansell ‘A CONCERT to celebrate being us” is Sibongile Khumalo’s only label for her new national tour programme. The Gwen Paterson lookalikes in the gallery may take that as a cue for self- congratulation — but any ambiguity is purely in the ears of the beholder. For what Khumalo and her musical director, […]

THEATRE: Peter Frost DARIO FO is primarily an entertainer, and his Elizabeth (Almost by Chance a Woman) is just that: entertainment, albeit it lengthy and convoluted. But the buzz on the streets is not so much the script’s success, as the enormous talent it has unearthed. Robyn Scott, making her stage debut as the aging […]

Julian Drew FOR two-time world cross country champion Zola Pieterse, the chance to finally compete in her favourite event on home turf must be an occasion she has long looked forward to. Although she is not in the best form of her career after giving birth in October, she is unlikely to be spared the […]

THEATRE: David le Page AT any time, it’s possible to pick out buzzwords pervading public debate and the media’s reporting of it. Words like ”struggle”, ”regime” and ”political correctness”, have now been joined by ”accountability”, ”transparency” and, of course, ”gravy train”. Unfortunately, if one thing remains in one’s mind after seeing Nape’a Motana’s The Honeymoon […]

The 18% excise duty increase on cigarettes displeases both anti-smoking lobbyists and the tobacco industry, reports Karen Harverson Anti-smoking lobbyists are disappointed at the 18% increase in the excise tax on cigarettes announced in the Budget on Wednesday. Total tax on cigarettes (including value-added tax) now comprises about 42% of the selling price compared to […]

Gaye Davis CHANGES to the National Archives Bill that bring under political control decisions on what records should be kept and what should be destroyed have caused an outcry among archivists and historians who helped draft the new law. But a clash with Arts, Culture, Science and Technology Minister Dr Ben Ngubane may yet be […]

Budget Karen Harverson There are positive features about the Budget, the most important of which is government’s plan to reduce the deficit to 5,1% of Gross Domestic Product, said Leslie Boyd, chairman of Business South Africa and Anglo American Industrial Corporation. He added that it was, however, difficult to describe the new Budget as bold […]

Eddie Koch THE African National Congress has instructed its leadership and members to go to the truth commission if they committed human rights abuses during the anti-apartheid struggle — and, in a gesture of support for the truth process, has withdrawn temporary immunity given to its members by the old government. “The ANC renounces the […]

POLITICS: An expert warns against moves to weaken local democracy The triumphant election of 30 000 councillors is already being undermined, argues Mark Swilling By the end of the local government elections in KwaZulu-Natal and the Western Cape later this year, South Africans will have elected more than 30 000 councillors to over 800 separate […]