Last weekend’s National Choir Festival reflected waning interest in an important art form, writes VUYO MVOKO MOST South Africans, even those who claim to have the interests of the arts at heart, probably won’t bother to try and understand why the National Choir Festival at the Standard Bank Arena in Johannesburg almost flopped last weekend. […]

An amended tax act has removed certain lucrative tax benefits, reports Rowan A NUMBER of tax consulting firms have had to scrap a company car scheme which they marketed as part of their attractive executive employment packages, after amendments to the Income Tax Act. Gareth Beaver, a tax consultant at Ernst & Young explained the […]

ROCK/POP: Chris Roper JOURNALISTS eager to gain space on the shelf allocated to “world music” have expended many words documenting the emergence of new “ethnic South African music”. But few seem to have noticed a metamorphosis taking place in a heretofore Eurocentric area of local music: the white male rock band. Yep, even these colonial […]

Gideon Mendel bridges two worlds in his photo- essays on living with Aids. He spoke to HAZEL HOW can an illness be photographed when its symptoms — until the final agonising stages — are largely invisible? How can the struggle of those afflicted with this disease be adequately documented without resorting to sensationalism or stereotype? […]

The apartheid years have laden South Africa’s public service with civil servants who are unable to reform local government departments, writes Lynda Loxton NEARLY two years after South Africa’s April elections, many government departments are still struggling to rid themselves of the detritus of apartheid and emerge as sleek and efficient operations. The process, unfortunately, […]

FINE ART: Hazel Friedman AT the opening of the Wits Technikon Students’ Exhibition at the Market’s Rembrandt Gallery, several guests hovered around a table laden with brown paper bags — neatly arranged and filled with popcorn — not knowing whether to acknowledge the “installation” with their eyes or their mouths. Given the nature of most […]

Marion Edmunds FREE State Premier Patrick Lekota is concerned that the African National Congress-aligned Congress of Traditional Leaders (Contralesa) is spreading its tentacles into the Free State. He has raised the matter with Eastern Cape Premier Raymond Mhlaba. Lekota’s concern adds to growing anxiety among ANC leaders about the role of traditional leaders in the […]

HOME Affairs Minister Mangosuthu Buthelezi came close to being arrested and charged with the KwaMakhutha murders, according to sources involved in the investigation. Buthelezi’s name appears several times in the documents that describe events leading to the formation of the Caprivi 200, the hit-squad unit whose members allegedly massacred 13 civilians in 1987. Most important […]

Lynda Loxton SOME analysts were somewhat sceptical this week about the much-publicised decision by the Rupert family empire to merge their tobacco interests in Rembrandt Group Limited (Remgro) and Swiss-based Richemont Securities AG. The merger will create a new, unlisted global tobacco giant, to be known as R&R Tobacco Holdings, which will incorporate Remgro’s tobacco […]

BADMINTON: Julian Drew HE might not have had quite the same impact on his chosen sport as Paul Adams did when wreaking havoc on the English batsmen in Kimberley, but Michael Adams (no relation) is certainly making plenty of waves of his own in the badminton world. Adams is also 18-years- old and hails from […]