The Indians are back, but can the South African team face the pressure? CRICKET: Jon Swift It is the most inescapable fact of our recent cricketing history that the sides from India have become both this country’s greatest allies and its most intractable foes. It was the men from the formerly impenetrable mists shrouding the […]

ART: Julia Teale Local artists and art cognoscenti anxiously awaited the opening of the Hanel Gallery in Cape Town about a month ago. The promise of having the risky, edgy, ex-Fig curator Robert Weinek combining his talents with the international profile and financial clout of the owners and directors of the H’nel Gallery was heady […]

Hazel Friedman Pact is in turmoil a year after it began its transformation process, say some members of the board appointed to the beleaguered arts council in November 1995. But chairman John Kani and Pact CEO Alan Joseph insist that ‘teething problems’ are a natural part of the process. The conflict centres on the imminent […]

Mungo Soggot THE South African National Civics Organisation (Sanco) has parted company with Michael Levinsohn, the head of its fledgling investment arm and the brains behind its new membership drive. The organisation’s stalwarts have been unnerved by Levinsohn’s increasing influence over the once radical organisation, which spearheaded opposition to ‘puppet’ local government under apartheid. Levinsohn […]

Stefaans Br’mmer IT has been a flat week for South African Breweries (SAB). Namibia Breweries, fresh from a victory at the Advertising Standards Authority, wants to force the South African brewing giant to disclose all ingredients it uses in brands sold in Namibia. The Advertising Standards Authority has ruled that elements of the latest SAB […]

Can a picture sell a thousand songs? GWEN ANSELL reports on the makeshift state of South African CD cover design, and some fresh new ideas ITS enemies claim that South African mass- market pop all sounds the same. Even its fans can’t deny that it all looks the same. Check out the serried ranks of […]

Tim Radford THE Mars Pathfinder lander – the second United States probe to be launched last month – is due to float down by parachute and bounce gently to rest on airbags on the surface of the Red Planet on July 4 1997. It will be the first visit for 21 years, since the Viking […]

A Cape Town conference last week pondered the impact of science and technology on culture, writes Lesley Cowling THERE’S a story of a Western explorer in Africa whose bearers sat down at the side of the path after carrying his goods for some hours and refused to continue the journey, despite his urging. They were […]

Denise Louw WRITTEN by talented young musician and composer Bongani Ndodana, South Africa’s first Xhosa opera, Temba and Seliba, premiered at the 1820 Settlers National Monument in Grahamstown on December 7. Nederburg Opera Prize-winner Gwyneth Lloyd researched and wrote the libretto for Temba and Seliba, a love story based on a conflation of two Xhosa […]

THE shortcomings of the media have been much commented upon by President Nelson Mandela this year, most memorably when he criticised our fraternity for failing to solve the country’s political crimes. Last weekend he further compounded our sense of collective inadequacy by denouncing the press for failing to use “scientific analysis” – a shortcoming which […]