the past? Brandon Hamber The kitchen of a small house in downtown So Paulo, Brazil, is the meeting place of the Comisso de Familiares de Mortos e Desaparecidos Politicas (Commission of the Families of Political Murder Victims and the Disappeared), an organisation of family members whose loved ones were killed during the military dictatorship in […]

Maya Jaggi Admiring Silence by Abdulrazak Gurnah (Hamish Hamilton, R109,95) Following the strange enchantments of his Booker-shortlisted Paradise – set in an East Africa on the brink of World War I – Abdulrazak Gurnah’s new novel grapples with an African-English present. In crisis, an unnamed schoolteacher in south London takes stock of his life. With […]

It’s no use just shouting from the sidelines about the threat to the National Symphony Orchestra, argues Bongani Ndodana ONE of the sad legacies of apartheid cultural policy was the false sense of security it brought to the arts. Provincial performing arts councils were formed and theatres, opera houses and concert halls erected as if […]

Marion Edmunds THE Home Affairs Department’s control over immigration and migration should be handed over to a new ministry, recommends research carried out by a government task team. The task team – chaired by Wilmot James, the Institute for a Democratic South Africa’s executive director – was appointed by Home Affairs Minister Mangosuthu Buthelezi last […]

Highveld Stereo’s new managers are grappling with change, reports Jacquie Golding-Duffy Former Highveld Stereo managing director Eon de Vos has left the radio station after an association of 17 years. De Vos and some of the new owners of Highveld differed on the strategy that should be used to take Highveld into the next century. […]

If you take your fashion lead from Britain, this is what the stylish will be wearing in 1997, according to SUSANNAH FRANKEL THIS year will go down in history as the year British fashion came into its own. John Galliano unveils his first couture collection for Christian Dior later this month; 27-year-old Alexander McQueen will […]

The controversial Syrian arms deal seems to have been leaked in an attempt to scupper it, reports Stefaans Brmmer THE government’s handling of the partially approved R3-billion arms deal with Syria has exposed deep divisions in official thinking on the crucial foreign policy area of arms control – and the leak of Cabinet minutes appeared […]

Jay Mathews Social scientists have spent decades trying to discover why some corporate chief executive officers (CEOs) make more money than others. Three university researchers say they now have a surprising answer: snob appeal. Their complex analysis of the records of 61 Fortune 500 companies, controlling the data for company size, CEO tenure and education […]

The svelte HAZEL FRIEDMAN goes out and gorges herself on Feedback Andrew Buckland’s mother would be forgiven for thinking that maybe, just maybe, her multi-talented son harbours repressed feelings of hostility towards her. I mean, carving up your mother’s corpse and turning her anatomical parts – breasts, boep, bum ‘n’ all – into gastronomical delights […]