An installation at the Johannesburg Art Gallery reveals surprising new dimensions to traditional African art and craft, reports RUTH SACK THE status of traditional African crafts and artefacts in Western museums has long been a question of unending debate. Over the years it has been possible to observe, in our museums and galleries, how versions […]

Bronwyn Jones finds more brilliant and bizarre inventions in her monthly look through the Patents Journal DON’T let the thousands of expected redundancies at Anglo American’s Freegold fool you; if the Patents Journal is anything to go by, South African mining is going from strength to strength. There are 15 major new mining patents this […]

Karen Harverson Once exchange controls are lifted, the South African investment community’s interest in offshore opportunities will snowball, says Syfrets Group chief executive Christopher Beatty, speaking at a launch this week of new international investment products. However, he cautioned that investors need to react quickly to changes in the international economy and understand the risks […]

CINEMA: Andrew Worsdale HUEY NEWTON, one of the founders of the Black Panther movement, was a great fan of Melvin Van Peebles’s 1971 movie Sweet Sweetback’s Baadassss Song. He even analysed that funky box-office smash, writing that its tale of a hustler who evolves into a revolutionary was an allegory of a `street brother who […]

Dirk Hartford It was reminiscent of the heady mass struggles of the Eighties. For four hours last Sunday, several hundred trade unionists listened to fiery speeches from workers and trade union leaders denouncing the government and its policy of national reconciliation as a `national disaster’ between songs praising socialism as the only road to liberation. […]

After the stunning display against Ghana South Africa have to lift themselves once again to take on the wily, talented Tunisians SOCCER: Paul Mandelson JOHN MOSHOEU, Mark Fish, Lucas Radebe and Clive Barker must have had countless dreams — asleep and wide awake — about crucial tackles, glorious goals and winning the African Cup of […]

Stefaans Brmmer A late-night visit by Mpumalanga Premier Matthews Phosa has failed, for now, to steer Swaziland’s young monarch towards democracy, but diplomats believe the steady application of `friendly’ pressure from, among others, President Nelson Mandela, will bear fruit. South Africa’s Foreign Affairs Department remained adamant this week it would not `interfere’ in Swaziland’s domestic […]

Gaye Davis and Rehana Rossouw THE policeman at the centre of the row over allegations that the National Intelligence Agency was spying on top policemen will not be undergoing a lie-detector test, police said this week. Crime Investigation Service spokesman, senior superintendent Faizel Kader, said superintendent H Moodley had volunteered for a polygraph test, but […]

Lynda Loxton The Katz Commission was slated last week for not going far enough in recommending a special tax dispensation for employee share ownership programmes (ESOPs). Msele Corporate and Merchant Bank joint managing director Litha Nyhonyha told the parliamentary joint standing committee on finance that the commission had missed a unique opportunity to promote ESOPs, […]

This week Africa’s largest banker, Absa, decided to reassure its perplexed staff about the `Bob Aldworth’ affair.