Justin Pearce INSURANCE brokers in Johannesburg are advising clients that drivers of luxury cars such as BMWs run the most serious risk of being hijacked. BMW South Africa has in turn accused the insurance industry of giving customers inaccurate information about car hijackings and has called on the police to reveal the truth about which […]

South African abolitionists just found an unlikely ally, reports David Beresford OPPONENTS of capital punishment have found a powerful new ally: the country’s police chief, George Fivaz, who has seen the light … not on the road to Damascus, but in Denmark. The possibility that capital punishment – outlawed by the Constitutional Court – will […]

Some of the irrational responses to crime could damage our new Bill of Rights, argues Etienne Mureinik MANY South Africans now live in dread of violent crime, and it is not just the awful number of daily victims that haunts them. It is also the gratuitousness with which petty thieves casually kill and cripple their […]

Justin Pearce A CIVIL Co-operation Bureau (CCB) operative turned mercenary boss and a disabled youth from Alexandra township made unlikely bedfellows as litigants in the Consitutional Court this week. In separate cases, Lafras Luitingh and Mokela Mohlomi challenged Section 113 of the Defence Act, which places limitations on the right of citizens to bring civil […]

CLASSICAL MUSIC: Coenraad Visser TWO outstanding soloists and an orchestra still inspired by Gerard Korsten’s recent visit marked the first two concerts conducted by Vladimir Simkine, the Russian conductor currently on the podium in front of the National Symphony First Tasmin Little gave a breathtakingly lyrical account of Beethoven’s violin concerto. Her articulation was always […]

The National Gallery’s exhibition of images of District Six is a valuable reconstruction of our collective memory, writes NEVILLE DUBOW Question: Name the place in Cape Town that was destroyed and where the residents were forcibly emoved to the Cape Town townships? Answer: District Six Question: Name the building that was erected through the heart […]

Faces of 1996: We speak to the Standard Bank Young Artist Award-winner for Music Music: S’busiso Nxumalo EVEN when Victor Masondo recounts the story of how he landed a two-month gig as musical director for trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie’s 1991 Live the Future world tour, you never feel like he’s blowing his own horn. But perhaps […]

ATHLETICS:Julian Drew IN 1986 the Commonwealth seemed to be teetering on the edge of the precipice. Only the stand against apartheid seemed to be preventing its disintegration as an organisation and even then Margaret Thatcher obstinately refused to agree with the rest of its leaders. But the rallying call which ensured the Commonwealth’s survival nearly […]

Rowan Callaghan WHY did the chicken cross the road? The response in the near future could be “because there were too many chicken slaughterhouses erected nearby”. This could be a reality soon, especially since a new project was launched two weeks ago by the Farmer Foundation to supply rural entrepreneurs with hygienic, portable chicken slaughterhouses. […]