It’s bonus time and the best place to put your cheque is in the bank. However, there are some romantic alternatives, writes Belinda Beresford Christmas is coming, and the credit card companies are getting fat, so please put your bonus into the bank. The sensible thing to do with your Christmas bonus is pay off […]

axe Mungo Soggot and David Shapshak Wits University axed Ron Clarke, the palaeoanthropologist responsible for last week’s sensational fossil find in Sterkfontein, despite receiving several written pleas from eminent international scientists to keep him on. Three top fossil academics based in the United States have confirmed they attempted to persuade the university to reconsider its […]

for that `good feeling’ Peter Makurube In her neighbourhood, even a child can lead you to Margaret Singana’s home. The singer once known as Lady Africa has not been on stage in a long while, but the people of Zola still treat her with the deference of old. When disaster struck, Margaret Singana was at […]

Andrew Muchineripi Soccer A year that began disappointingly for Bafana Bafana with a Castle Cup defeat in Namibia ended triumphantly with victory over African champions Egypt in the Nelson Mandela Inauguration Challenge at FNB Stadium. The scoreline read 2-1 and it could have been 5-1 as Benni McCarthy fluffed a good chance, Thabo Mngomeni had […]

Maya Jaggi: FIRST PERSON Carmen Legge is 35 years old. She is a successful insurance broker, she has long red hair, she owns a BMW, she has her own flat. And she has a boyfriend who “wants it four times a day”. In short she has everything that Bridget Jones, protagonist in Helen Fielding’s book […]

Tangeni Amupadhi A band of robbers and kill-ers is terrorising African immigrants in Johannesburg in what appears to be a systematic elimination of the foreign nationals. The latest casualty was Djo Ongonga Okamba from Brazzaville, the capital of Congo. He was shot dead last week, days before he was to leave for his home town. […]

Andrew Worsdale The Great Escape, a fascinating documentary airing on SABC1 at 6.30pm on Sunday December 20, tells the story of the famous Marshall Square jailbreak in 1963 where activists Arthur Goldreich, Mosie Moolla, Charlie Jasset and Harold Wolpe managed to persuade warder Johan Greef to let them out with the promise of payment. Greef […]

Fiona Macleod A deal being hammered out with the southern Kalahari Bushmen will entitle them to jointly own and manage more than 1 000km2 of the Kalahari Gemsbok National Park in the Northern Cape. It will also add about 500km2 on to the park. If the deal goes through – and there are indications it […]

Sanctions against Burundi are falling away, writes Gregory Mthembu-Salter Sanctions imposed by East African countries against Burundi in the wake of the military coup in July 1996 are nearing their end. Of the six original participants, Kenya, Ethiopia and Zambia abandoned sanctions months ago and the Rwandan government believes their usefulness is over, leaving only […]

David Shapshak Spending It In science fiction, functional technology has long been integrated into mainstream culture as fashion. Technology has often been reinvented as fashion, witness what Bang & Olafsson have done for the dour hi-fi or Apple’s iMac for the home personal computer. The cellphone, that once distinctive sign of a yuppie, is going […]