Black is beautiful, but that doesn’t mean local black models are getting assignments, finds Hazel Friedman BLACK might be beautiful and local downright lekker, but in the ramp ‘n vamp world of modeldom, black is black, local is local, and rarely the twain do meet. While most of the white beaus and babes gracing the […]

Ann Eveleth reports on the bizarre trial of KwaZulu-Natal rightwingers accused of a fantastic plot to take control of the province THE white right wing wanted a volkstaat. The Inkatha Freedom Party wanted a Zulu kingdom. Pat Hlongwane wanted explosives. And the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging wanted to wipe out African National Congress township strongholds in KwaZulu-Natal. […]

A LETTER written by one of Ken Saro-Wiwa’s lawyers to Nelson Mandela says it all: “Were quiet diplomacy pursued in South Africa … I doubt you would be alive today.” Our humiliation at Friday’s executions in Nigeria is complete. The question facing South Africa now is how to proceed. We have snubbed the Nigerian national […]

THERE are not many people who can question President Nelson Mandela’s moral authority. There are not many who have the credibility and authority to stand up to him. Indeed, there are not many who would have the courage to try. This week’s crisis over Nigeria threw the spotlight on one of the very few people […]

CINEMA: Justin Pearce IN Grief, a television production company occupies offices that used to house a brothel, and, as their producer remarks, it’s now a different kind of prostitution that goes on there. Making low-budget daytime television is prostitution in more than one sense though, as much about the displaced gratification of desire as about […]

Although the team will be without many of their foreign-based stars, there will still be some tough competition in the Four Nations tournament SOCCER:Lungile Madywabe POLITICAL turmoil in Africa has for a long time undermined the continent’s ability to fullfil its potential in world sport, especially the world’s number one, soccer, and the South African […]

OPERA: Coenraad Visser AS one has come to expect, the Italian Opera Gala presented by the Roodepoort City Opera is something of a curate’s egg. But the good parts are quite simply stunning. Excerpts from eight Italian operas are presented on an open stage, without the aid of props or costumes. But with imaginative direction […]

Whether I live or die is immaterial. It is enough to know that there are people who commit time and energy to fight this one evil among so many others predominating worldwide. If they do not succeed today, they will succeed tomorrow. We must keep on striving to make the world a better place for […]

FINE ART: Hazel Friedman ASK anyone who knows anything about Trevor Makhoba’s art where his best paintings can be found, and you’ll be told to look not in the myriad institutions and public collections that house his work, but in the township of Umlazi. It was here, before this area of KwaZulu-Natal became one of […]

Funds destined for community cultural groups have been redirected back to the performing arts councils. HAZEL FRIEDMAN reports on the ensuing fracas CULTURAL war is being waged over cuts in provincial funding promised to community cultural structures by the Ministry of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology. The battlelines have been drawn between the Gauteng-based Arts […]