THE SABC’s launch of three new television channels on Sunday night complete with jumbo jet, lasers, Stevie Wonder and Nelson Mandela was the most spectacular launch this country has seen. If it was the national broadcaster’s intention to show self-confidence and razzmatazz, it was a great success, with 150 minutes and R3,8-million of often-breathtaking extravaganza. […]

Nicole Fritz Television critics at South Africa’s largest daily newspapers have generally given the thumbs-up to the SABC’s new programme line-up on its three television channels. But Beeld’s critic Andries Cornelissen is critical of the continued use of dubbing. If the SABC wants to reflect South African society, it musn’t look to dubbed programmes. Afrikaans […]

BALLET: Stanley Peskin IT would be silly to expect any ballet (or, for that matter, film or stage play) based on Leo Tolstoys majestic Anna Karenina to be Tolstoyan in impact. In fact, Andre Prokovskys adaptation of the novel for ballet in 1979 (now a standard work in Pact Ballets repertory) owes more to Clarence […]

Stefaans Brummer THE media are under renewed attack in some African countries, if a recent spate of arrests and bannings, and an apparent assassination attempt are anything to go by. The Post of Zambia, long a thorn in the side of President Frederick Chiluba, this week came under the strongest censure from government yet, when […]

Business believes it has the answer to marketing tourism in South Africa, reports Karen Harverson South Africa is the fastest-growing tourist destination in the world but this is due more to its flavour of the month status initiated by the 1994 elections than its marketing activities overseas. With a shoe-string budget of R48-million for 1996 […]

Hazel Friedman Peter Mancer must have been born with rhinestones in his eyes and wings on his feet. As he drapes himself over his chair with a foppish swirl of his cape part Hollywood mogul, part song’n’dance man I can almost see him cocking an imaginary top hat, twirling his cane and tap-dancing his way […]

Justin Pearce AN easy way to kill 80 000 people muttered the man at the Africa Cup of Nations final as the Boeing 747 swooped over to ruffle the hair of the crowd. Laurie Kay, the man who was in the cockpit, disagrees: In Hong Kong people wouldn’t turn their heads at something like that, […]

The minister of health said her department could not have been expected to consult every NGO about a R14- million Aids play. Vuyo Mvoko and Justin Pearce report Minister of Health Nkosazana Zuma has defended her department’s decision to spend R14,27-million on the production of a play on Aids awareness, despite massive criticism from non-governmental […]

leon Perlman Faced with shrinking margins, not everyone welcomes the return of multi-national information technology (IT) companies to South Africa. The re-entry of major IT companies is proving to be a mixed blessing for some local hardware and software distributors. Some say that local users might have to start forking out more for what they […]

The public service is run by a code so detailed and archaic that it prescribes acceptable body weights for job applicants and provides endless blockages to government progress, reports Anton Harber ONE issue, more than any other, will determine the extent to which President Nelson Mandela’s government succeeds this year in its ambitious mission. It […]