CDs of the week: Phillip Kakaza Although this country still boasts a lively jazz tradition, so much of the best of it was shipped away to flourish abroad. The Blue Notes, founded by innovative pianist Chris McGregor, went to exile in 1965. Apartheid prohibited them from performing as a racially mixed band in South Africa. […]

staff survived With its staff drawn from such diverse backgrounds, there was as much tension within the TRC as at the public hearings, writes Gaye Davis The three-year life span of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) has been marked by public sensation throughout the hearings. But behind the public drama of tortured facing the […]

Things are changing at Nasa. In October it saw the launch of a spacecraft with an engine that thunders with all the force of a small piece of paper resting on your hand. But, according to researchers working on the mission, the almost imperceptible thrust of this ion drive could be the key to the […]

The scramble to gag the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s (TRC) final report has soured what should have been a crowning moment for South Africa. We had wanted to show the world and ourselves that we could take our violent and dehumanised past, stare it in the face, acknowledge it and move on. Instead, we have […]

year David Shapshak Desmond Tutu’s personal story of the time he spent as head of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) has been sold to publishers Random House and is scheduled to be in print by late next year. The deal was confirmed this week by Stephen Johnson, the head of Random House in South […]

Ferial Haffajee South African radio listeners, whether they tune into Zulu, Tsonga, English or any of the other eight South African language news services, have grown used to the staid bulletins of the ”Here is the news at one o’clock” variety. Yfm, Gauteng’s one-year-old commercial radio station, has broken out of the straightjacket culled from […]

Anthony Egan A LIFE AT LAW: THE MEMOIRS OF IA MAISELS QC by Isie Maisels (Jonathan Ball) Israel Aaron Maisels, Isie to his friends, was one of the greatest defence advocates in the legal history of South Africa. Born in Johannesburg, he attended a government school, Marist Brothers’ School (forerunner to the present Sacred Heart), […]

For a long time all Bloemfontein could offer was lots of vleis, rugby and the sound of veldskoene on its pristine pavements . Being black was no fun in this town in the province where you weren’t allowed to take a leak. But Mangaung, as it was called before the right-wing trekked in, is losing […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Thursday 11.00am. DINGAAN THOBELA blew his much-hyped big comeback at Nasrec on Wednesday night, fighting to a draw with Argentina’s Carlos Baldomir. The scores were 115-113 to Baldomir, 116-112 to Thobela and 114-114. It was not a sparkling performance for the South African, who simply did not show the dynamism required […]

MIKE METELITS, Johannesburg | Thursday 3.00pm. A NEW twist in the Reserve Bank’s repo system of lending short-term money to banks emerged Wednesday, as the Bank overestimated market liquidity demands by about R300-million, offering R7,1-billion while tendering banks only took up R6,8-billion. This shortfall indicates that liquidity conditions in the market are easing, making banks […]