A Led Zeppelin, Cat Stevens and Snoop Dogg fan, Katie Melua represents the new generation of artists on the music scene. Extensive travel has taught Melua the ways of the world, writes Nadia Neophytou.
Movie director Rodney Evans, a guest of this year’s Out in Africa Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, writes about the making of his award-winning feature film <i>Brother to Brother</i>. The work follows the emotional journey of a young artist who discovers the hidden legacies of gay subculture within the Harlem renaissance.
It may be against all odds, but perhaps the South African Rugby Union got it right when it called for submissions not just for the new fifth team, but for all five franchises ahead of next year’s expansion to the Super 14. After three rounds of the Super 12, the current South African franchises have recorded a grand total of two wins and one draw, a statistic that would be depressing were it not so familiar.
Max Ebrahim, the convenor of Zimbabwe’s cricket selectors, believes his country’s Test status is irrevocable. Given that his livelihood depends on that status, he’d be forgiven for defiant rhetoric, even rhetoric not necessarily based on facts. ”It took New Zealand 45 years before they had their first win,” he told Sapa earlier this week.
Having just won the prestigious Linares tournament in Spain, Garry Kasparov announced that he was quitting professional chess. A colleague asked me what it meant. I said it was the equivalent of Ronaldinho suddenly turning his back on
professional soccer: a genius, the world’s greatest player, unexpectedly packing it in.
At about 8am on March 20 1995 commuters on packed subway trains in central Tokyo sensed something was wrong. They started to cough and struggle for breath. Some of those who made it on to platforms and upstairs to street level collapsed, foaming at the mouth and coughing up blood.
European governments — with the exception of Britain — reacted coolly on Thursday to the prospect of Paul Wolfowitz, the neoconservative advocate of war in Iraq, becoming president of the World Bank. But diplomats said it was unlikely that Europe, which holds about 30% of the seats on the bank’s board, would seek to strain transatlantic relations by blocking him.
No action has been taken against the former chairperson of the Ethekwini Metro council audit committee, Mdu Msomi, who was last year accused of attempting to cream R1-million off a legal settlement between the council and Rainbow Chickens.
Allegations came to light last year that Msomi indicated that the city was prepared to accept an offer of R6-million, provided R1-million of that was paid to the Singila Trust.
<img src="http://www.mg.co.za/ContentImages/199502/Zim_icon.GIF" align=left>The African National Congress is presenting a unified front on the March 31 elections in Zimbabwe, but behind the scenes there is increasing debate in the ruling party about how to deal with the political and economic crisis north of the Limpopo.
It is described as the last great American wilderness and has been the battle ground between the United State’s most powerful oil interests and environmentalists for more than two decades. But on Thursday the giants of the energy industry were celebrating a significant victory and looking forward to the chance to move into one of the most lucrative oil fields left in the US.