Donna Block European markets jumped ahead. Asia hit an 11-year low. The Athens exchange has a positive outlook ahead of privatisation, while the Heng Seng has lost 2% of its value. Welcome to the stock markets of the world. What does it all mean and what is the Heng Seng anyway? The Heng Seng is […]
FRIDAY, 8.30AM: DEPUTY President Thabo Mbeki on Thursday added his voice to Wednesday’s criticism by President Nelson Mandela of the South African Communist Party. Addressing the SACP’s 10th annual congress, Mbeki berated the party for the ease with which it has levelled “charges of treachery” against the African National Congress, adding that the ANC does […]
Suzy Bell On show in Durban Never has Jung been so playful, and yet so arresting. Last Tango in Heaven, produced by Durban’s pioneering Backlash Theatre Company, was written by that most underrated Pretoria playwright, Mario Scheiss. He wrote the play in four days and then, dramatically, on June 2, at the age of 64, […]
Robert Kirby: Loose Cannon When your weekend newspaper starts to depress your spirits, don’t just reach out automatically for the brandy bottle or the Prozac, there are easier ways to shed the gloom. An excellent selection of low comedy is to be enjoyed merely by turning to the Appointments section in the paper. Reading through […]
Michael Metelits Futures and options have a bad name in many circles. These financial “derivatives”, so-called because their price is derived from the price of another security, can make sensational amounts of money for the smart and lucky and lose equally spectacular amounts for the smart and unlucky. Crashes of traditional equity markets get blamed […]
A new imaging service was launched last week on the Internet, courtesy of American and Russian military satellites. Duncan Campbell takes a peek By the end of this year, the world’s largest online database will be offering browse and click satellite pictures of much of the Earth’s surface and all of its largest towns. The […]
Oxford University Press (OUP)has relaunched its paperback World’s Classics series, a handsome and sturdy set of the best of Europe’s voluminous literature (with some American and Asian works thrown in, too). The titles reach back to Mesopotamia thousands of years ago and forward to James Joyce’s Ulysses. The series features sacred texts such as the […]
Andrew Muchineripi World Cup The sparring sessions are over. The skirmishes have been completed. The time for war is at hand. If you have been holidaying on Mars, fret not. The real World Cup begins on Friday. With the greatest respect to all those noble qualifiers who have been eliminated, including our beloved Bafana Bafana, […]
Ed O’Loughlin The Pretoria grave of Anglo-Boer War soldier and poet Harry “Breaker” Morant has been taken under the care of the Australian government, 96 years after he was court-martialled and executed for alleged atrocities against Boer prisoners and civilians. The grave, which had suffered from neglect and vandalism, stands in a quiet civilian section […]
Charl Blignaut On stage in Johannesburg Pieter Toerien’s Alhambra theatre is the perfect setting for a South African staging of Alan Ayckbourne’s classic Absurd Person Singular. It’s a trademark Ayckbourne nudge-nudge wink-wink; “oh-don’t-worry- about-Tom-he’s-out-there-playing-with-Dick kind of farce”, and the three couples that inhabit the three kitchens during three Christmas eve parties in the play are […]