It’s been a bad week for municipalities in the Eastern Cape, with public figures battered by fraud and sex scandals. Peter Dickson reportsThe mayor grabbed his assault rifle while the town secretary downloaded porn from the Internet and seven councillors drove home courtesy of their fake driver’s licences. Sounds like a brave new world’s ultimate […]

He’s the eternal optimist, the affable family man who happens to be a sex-god superstar. Yet still he doesn’t feel loved. He spoke to Miranda Sawyer Ewan McGregor is one of the most extraordinary people you could ever meet; but what is startling about him is his delightful, dumbfounding ordinariness. His freakish normality. Richard E […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Cape Town | Friday 2.30pm. PARLIAMENT on Friday afternoon approved Health Minister Nkosazana Zuma’s widely contested Tobacco Products Control Amendment Bill, which bars all tobacco advertising and smoking in public places. The strict anti-smoking legislation pushes South Africa into the ranks of the world’s most smoker-unfriendly countries. Parliament’s ratification of the bill brings […]

Mungo Soggot The Cabinet has given Minister of Public Service and Administration Zola Skweyiya an extra R300-million to pay civil servants and fund the transformation of the public service. The increase is about 10% of the government’s R3,4-billion budget for what the public service department terms “the improvement of conditions of service”. The increase was […]

Ferial Haffajee A rose by any other name may smell as sweet, but the jury’s out on whether Gear in any other guise is still the same economic policy. The African National Congress has won cheers (from its communist and trade union partners) and provoked jibes (from business and its press) with its stated intention […]

Jack Schofield The lock on your front door could soon be so small you’ll need a microscope to see it. And if that sounds insecure, bear in mind that what its inventors claim is the “world’s smallest combination lock” will also be fitted inside computers to keep hackers away. It could also be used in […]

bark The silence surrounding last week’s appointments by the Judicial Services Commission is deafening. The Bench and academia are seething with indignation over the appointments of the two judges president and one deputy. Yet there is not a bleat of public protest other than the resignation of Judge Piet van der Walt from the Office […]

Bill Ann Eveleth : IN THE ACT Minister of Health Nkosazana Zuma has the tobacco industry huffing and puffing over the Tobacco Products Control Amendment Bill, which aims to discourage young people from taking up smoking. Anti-smokers and a curious array of pro- tobacco lobbyists – including the Congress of South African Trade Union’s affiliated […]

Sechaba ka’Nkosi Embattled Democratic Republic of Congo President Laurent Kabila ignored his advisers and allies this week by snubbing a comprehensive peace offer from the rebels that could have ended the war that is tearing Central Africa apart. The offer, which was confirmed by high- level sources, was made to Kabila last week, hours after […]

Phillip Kakaza Can art depict a people’s identity? This was a question that I kept toying with after viewing the San Art exhibition now showing at Absa Art Gallery in downtown Johannesburg. At first the bright, multi-hued surfaces seem almost to resist analysis. One is totally taken in by the surface qualities of colour and […]