lane While Michael Schumacher and Jacques Villeneuve battle for top spot in the last race of the season, Gerhard Berger will be driving his last race. Alan Henry reports Gerhard Berger’s decision to retire after this next weekend’s European Grand Prix at Jerez in Spain will be met with a mixture of sadness and relief. […]

Steve Morris : Rugby The Springboks go to Europe for a five-Test tour, which starts with an outing against Italy in Bologna on November 8, with a substantially new side and rising new hopes that Springbok rugby under Nick Mallett is not the brittle entity that the series loss against the British Lions would have […]

Sian Stone : Style Hey, don’t send a film critic to review movies, send the fashion editor. Nicholas Cage and John Travolta were just fine in John Woo’s Face/Off. Yes, the plot is rather entertaining. But none of it is a patch on the elegant sophistication of the Donna Karan outfits. This is the movie […]

The pinch has set in but economists say the real pain for South-east Asia is yet to come, writes Seth Mydans A businessman pays for a home-remodelling job with his Mercedes. A chauffeur says imported milk powder for his two children now costs more. An estate agent spends his afternoons sipping iced tea in an […]

THURSDAY, 11.00AM: A DISPUTE has flared between the ministries of water and the environment over a white paper on environmental management policy, now being debated by Parliament’s environmental committee. Water Affairs Minister Kader Asmal insists that his department will remain the ”lead agent” over water resource management. Environmental Affairs Deputy Minister Peter Mokaba insists that […]

Anton Marshall : In your ear Tuesday October 14 saw the launch of Cape Talk Radio, intended to be hard-hitting, topical talk radio. The line-up draws from the cream of South African print and radio, featuring a celebrated variety of media personalities like John Maytham, Martin Jordison and Lisa Chait, and others. Chait and Jordison […]

Janet Jackson has a new CD out, reports Michael Odell Since Oprah Winfrey, and after Sinad O’Connor, Sting and Michael Stipe, superstardom is more than ever about public dysfunction. We used to require our pop stars to be healthier, wealthier and wiser than us. Now we want to know what keeps them awake in their […]

THURSDAY, 11.00AM: IMPORTS rose 3,6% from August to September, and exports were down 4%, latest customs and excise figures reveal. The rise in imports has been attributed to oil imports which had been excluded from the August figures and lumped into the September figure; the decline in exports has been attributed to disappointing gems and […]