CD of the week : Caroline Sullivan Supposedly, PJ(Polly Jean) Harvey doesn’t have a phone in her Dorset house. But it takes a singular talent to come up with gems like her last album, 1995’s To Bring You My Love, and for Harvey reclusiveness seems to spark the creative process. It’s worked again on Is […]

Chiara Carter and Marianne Merten A legend who lived a fast life and died a hard death is the inevitable epitaph for slain Cape Town gang leader Jackie Lonte. Lonte – born Neville Heroldt -scripted his life like a B-grade gangster movie and mythologised himself in a city where his gang, the Americans, has resonance […]

in one country The people of R,union form a world of ethnic combinations in one country. Shaun de Waal attended the arts festival on the island which attempts to reflect this cultural intermingling Flying over the island of R,union in a helicopter, the old catchline of the South African tourist board comes to mind: “The […]

Gail Smith African women involved in all aspects of film – from producers and directors to grassroots organisers – will be among the delegates at Sithengi ’98. These include Zimbabwean filmmaker Tsitsi Dangarembga, director of Everyone’s Child, who is also the author of the critically acclaimed novel, Nervous Condition. Also attending this year are Anne […]

Residents of De Buldt in the Karoo now have the resources to rebuild their homes, writes Tara Turkington At the end of a long dirt road in the barren Karoo lies a place where residents defied apartheid, and got away with it. Although now almost a ruin, a major award has given it a brighter […]

John Perlman Nick Mallett doesn’t look worried. “It’s a very nice problem I have,” says the Springbok coach of the fact that his back row, widely seen as the finest in rugby, currently excludes a 22-year-old more and more people regard as potentially the finest loose forward in the world. Bobby Skinstad doesn’t seem too […]

The furore about the new anti-smoking legislation is not about individuals’ rights, argues Michael Metelits Minister of Health Nkosazana Zuma’s Tobacco Products Control Amendment Bill fired up a huge controversy as tobacco firms, lobbyists and unions squared off against the government and anti-smoking groups over sport sponsorships, smoking in public and advertising bans. It’s tempting […]

Mungo Soggot and Sechaba ka ‘Nkosi The public protector tried to shield the disgraced rector of Vaal Technikon, who was fired after a commission of inquiry found him guilty of financial impropriety and abusing his position. The technikon’s council ousted Professor Aubrey Mokadi and attached several of his assets this week despite a threat from […]

Howard Barrell : Over a Barrel Nkosazana Zuma, it seems, takes the view that, if you want to bring about far- reaching change, do it early, do it hard and give your opponents no quarter. The way the tobacco companies, health insurers and drug companies are now bleating to the courts for respite suggests the […]

appeasement “The only defence that can be offered is that the issue was intensely debated by the commission, which ultimately succumbed to the fears of those who argued that Buthelezi’s appearance would give him a platform from which to oppose the commission and would stoke the flames of violence in KwaZulu-Natal, as indeed he himself […]