As the city of gold looks forward to Baba Maal’s concerts, our critic considers other recent shows HE was picked up from the airport in a limo, because that’s what he requested. And he’s over half an hour late for the interview. In fairness, his flight was delayed by three hours. He walks into the […]

Madeleine Wackernagel THE European Commission has not blocked a $74-million loan to the Saldanha Steel project, merely reserved judgment, says Erwan Four, the European Union’s ambassador to South Africa. The EC has sent the file back to the European Investment Bank, says Four, for further consideration; the EIB will review the issue and then decide […]

Joshua Amupadhi ROBERT SOBUKWE must be turning restlessly in his grave at the latest high-profile Pan Africanist Congress’s (PAC) failure to resuscitate his dream at its weekend convention in Pretoria. Speeches on the opening day stated how the PAC would be “totally overhauled” and “transformed” to become a “vanguard of the have-nots”. But critics said […]

BASEBALL:Ian Katz BASEBALL fans love nothing more than records, and no records more than the home- run kind, but even the most ardent collectors of the sport’s statistical superlatives admit things are getting a little out of hand. Scarcely a day goes by, it seems, without some home-run record falling. Last weekend it was the […]

In his second venture into business, Cyril Ramaphosa is set to take over at Eskom, writes Mungo Soggot CYRIL RAMAPHOSA is tipped to become the next chairman of national power supplier Eskom when the present incumbent, John Maree, steps down. The chief executive officer of the parastatal, Allan Morgan, confirmed this week it would be […]

The UK tops a list of lender nations taking out more from the developing world than they put in, reports Richard Thomas in London Britain is squeezing cash out of the world’s poorest countries by demanding levels of debt repayment far outweighing new loans or aid, according to figures published this week. As representatives of […]

approaching Greg Barrow in Zanzibar FOR more than 200 years, giant Aldabra tortoises have thrived on Prison Island, a small coral atoll just off the coast of Zanzibar that was once used as a detention centre for disobedient slaves. When explorer David Livingstone established his expedition headquarters in Zanzibar in 1866, he may well have […]

Marion Edmunds PETER GODWIN, author of the bestselling book Mukiwa: A White Boy in Africa, has slated the TV series Rhodes for judging a man of yesterday by the morals of today. “Rhodes is a stirring and affecting television production, beautifully filmed, but it feels like a work overwhelmed by … the very worst interpretation […]

JAZZ: Gwen Ansell IT’S the Wednesday before his first Johannesburg concert and Courtney Pine shivers beside a wall outside the Parktonian Hotel as rain clouds loom. “The guys all brought shorts and stuff. Is the weather real?” Courtney Pine ambles out from side-stage at Mega Music, casually blowing soprano sax, about halfway through the first […]

With advertising averaging R166-million, the local tobacco industry has refused to voluntarily withdraw its ad campaigns, reports Gillian Farquhar THIS week the Tobacco Institute of Southern Africa denied that the countries’ tobacco companies would voluntarily withdraw their advertising next year. It was speculated in advertising and marketing circles that this move, recently attempted by American […]