ONE of the curious aspects of the African National Congress in government is its paradoxical insistence on exercising its authority when it is not needed and failure to do so when it is. The paradox was on display again this week, with regard to Zaire and the leadership struggle in the Free State. When Nelson […]

OPERA: Andrew Clements in Amsterdam WITH David Pountney’s staging of Shostakovich’s The Nose for The Netherlands Opera in Amsterdam, his already fertile imagination as well as his budget ran riot. There can’t be many opera houses in the world that could have bankrolled something as extravagant as this. Lasting under 100 minutes, it’s a virtuoso […]

Mail & Guardian Reporter THE attorney general’s astounding decision to allow Absa’s senior counsel to help pen the criminal charge sheet against former Absa boss Bob Aldworth while acting in a related civil matter has had some record- breaking spinoffs. When Aldworth appeared in the Johannesburg Magistrates Court this week it emerged that his lawyers, […]

Nobuyoshi Araki picks up women, snaps them naked, then sells the pictures to porn mags. NICHOLAS BORNOFF meets Japan’s unlikely popular hero NOBUYOSHI ARAKI says Tokyo is obscene. Coming from him, that’s a compliment. For he thrives on both obscenity and Tokyo. Araki was already famous 10 years ago, but today he is probably the […]

Chris McGreal reports from Goma on the looting of the hated president’s lakeside holiday home, a monument to extravagance in a land of poverty MOBUTU SESE SEKO has paid only one visit to his palatial holiday home on Lake Kivu. That was six years ago and he will not be going back. As Zaire’s president […]

ART: Greg Bowes THIS is possibly the most desirable shopfront I’ve ever seen, but seemingly without a shop. It can’t be for the Chinese supermarket next door because the display consists of a stunning array of rare and collectable techno records, and it can’t be for dance music outlet and DJ hangout Acid Dog/Liquid Records, […]

Ster Moribo has turned one year old. BAFANA KHUMALO looks at the mission to Africanise the movie-going experience THE shutters hide the glory of the venue’s past. The venue is the Eyethu cinema in Mofolo central, Soweto, and the death of the cinema represents the end of a movie-going era. This is the cinema where […]

Shaun de Waal CONTRARYto reports – including one in this paper last week – and information supplied by retrenched staff, Ravan Press is not closing its doors. Gerald de Villiers, executive chairman of Hodder &Stoughton Educational and Ravan, writes:”Yes, Ravan Press, in which Hodder has held a majority shareholding for several years, has recently been […]

OPERA: Coenraad Visser PACT OPERA first staged this astounding production of Wagner’s Der Fliegende Hollander in 1991. The Teatro Colon team, Roberto Oswald and Anibal Lapiz, created a visual spectacle the envy of any major opera house. The cast too, led by South Africans Wicus Slabbert and Marieta Napier, would have done any major artistic […]

Lynda Loxton LINKING up with Malaysian group Petronas and listing exploration arm Energy Africa have speeded up Engen’s drive into Africa. Chief executive Rob Angel told a recent media briefing that Petronas’s 30% stake in Engen gave the South African company the financial muscle at a time of squeezed margins to venture into downstream operations […]