TUESDAY, 12.30AM: SOUTH African Rugby Football Union president Louis Luyt was accused of making racist remarks about former Sarfu vice-president Brian van Rooyen, author of the Van Rooyen dossier about the state of South African rugby, when he took the stand in the Pretoria High Court on Monday. Luyt was confronted with allegations that he […]

TUESDAY, 1.30PM: THE Southern African Development Community, currently chaired by South Africa, has asked the international community to write off the debt of its member states. The debt burden is retarding the SADC programme of regional integration. At a debate on the debt crisis in Sweden, SADC executive secretary Kaire Mbuende said as SADC debt […]

MONDAY, 6.30PM: THE financial index on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange was pushed to its ninth consecutive record high on Monday, and its good figures were emulated by the industrial and all share indices. Gold shares, however, were held down by the poor gold price. The financial index’s fever was maintained by rumours of mergers and […]

MONDAY, 6.30PM: PAKISTAN, who were floundering with their score on 264/8 at the tea break in the first Test at the Wanderers in Johannesburg, are battling grimly on. The Pakistanis are hanging in there at 311/9. MONDAY, 11.00AM: PAKISTAN will resume their innings on Monday at the Wanderers in Johannesburg with their score on 106/4, […]

FRIDAY, 12.00NOON: SOUTH Africa’s Wayne Ferreira continued his revival at the Dubai Open on Thursday with a tense and hard-fought second-round victory over powerful New Zealander Brett Steven. World No 50 Steven got the match off to a cracking start, conceding only three points on serve and breaking Ferreira twice in the first set. But […]

Government’s hands-off approach has ensured an economic success story, writes Tim Trulock For 27 years, the former president of Zambia, Kenneth Kaunda, nationalised not only the large flagship companies, but also many small, nickel-and-dime operations. The government became the major shareholder in Zambia and then proceeded to run it into the ground, destroying not only […]

At 27, Paul Thomas Anderson is winning plaudits with Boogie Nights, about the early days of blue movies. Jonathan Romney meets the man who has made Burt Reynolds hip again Hollywood in the late nineties is more than ever committed to child’s play, to effects- laden nursery diversions designed to make grown-up money. No wonder […]

Mandela claims crime is waning, but criminal syndicates could be gaining strength, writes David Beresford South Africa appears to be teetering on the brink of the nightmare of crime which is reality for Russia and Colombia, in the wake of the recent heists and the controversy surrounding this country’s so-called “public enemy no 1”, Collin […]

Dr Nina Simone is not a woman to mess with. Her first love was classical piano, but she was forced into jazz and soul. Forty years on, her music is as potent a political weapon as ever. Michael Bracewell spoke to the diva Back in 1987, when the regenerated town centres of boom-economy Britain could […]

Andrew Higgins As banks wobble and crash across Asia, a sparkling, futuristic structure is rising on the Avenue of Eternal Peace in Beijing. It is a grandiose declaration of confidence by China’s biggest commercial bank. But the edifice stands on unsteady foundations. The Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC)is, by any reckoning, a wreck. […]