There was occasion for thanksgiving this week, on the release from Mozambique’s Machave prison of Robert McBride, although there is something of a puzzle as to who should be thanked. Not the African National Congress, few members of which turned up at Johannesburg International airport to welcome him home and thereby claim the credit. Under […]

Richard Cornwell and Jakkie Potgieter Propaganda claims to the contrary, there appears to be a relative lull in the fighting in the Democratic Republic of Congo, as the various forces regroup and resupply, while the deteriorating weather makes the large-scale movement of mechanised troops increasingly difficult. This provides a breathing space in which the region’s […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Sunday 11.45am. SUNDOWNS were stunned on Saturday when they went down 2-1 to Bloemfontein Celtic in a shock Premier Soccer League defeat at the Free State Stadium. Sundowns missed many opportunities that could have seen then take the match, but Celtic opened the scoring in the 25th minute through Stoffel Nikane […]

Angella Johnson : VIEW FROM A BROAD `Isn’t it great how you can get just about anything on the Internet these days,” says Gail Bentel cheerfully. We’re not talking about ordering a pizza. Bentel has run a cat-breeding business, made friends around the world, bought a house and found her dream man while surfing the […]

Emma Durden : On stage in Hilton When a piece of theatre is both popular and well put-together, and purports to exist purely to keep theatre alive and kicking in this country, then we know that art is going somewhere. This was my overwhelming feeling after seeing Ipi Zombi? in the Natal Midlands this weekend. […]

Ian Whittell The TV stations are the hardware, the sports teams the software. That is the cynical but realistic jargon in an American sports world in which media companies are taking hold. “The long tentacles of media conglomerates are something we have to watch very carefully,” said Bud Selig, commissioner of Major League Baseball. And […]

He’s known for his long, soft notes, but it’s the wild brushstrokes of Miles Davis that are about to get Jo’burg talking. Matthew Krouse and Alex Dodd check it out When Miles Davis was hit by a stroke in the late Seventies, his hand went into paralysis and he was terrified that he would never […]

Alex Sudheim : On show in Durban The residents of Emalendeni hostels are always hungry. The 90 physically-disabled children and youths living in the low, bleak buildings on the outskirts of Durban’s Umlazi township no longer receive food aid from the government, and survive on the 10 loaves of bread a day donated by a […]

Andrew Worsdale The French, arguably, invented cinema, although there is some contention that Thomas Edison was the founder. Either way, thanks to brothers Auguste andLouis Lumire, cinema became part of daily life with screenings at Paris’s Grand Caf in 1895. Frenchman George Mlis, probably the first cinema artist, developed special effects to create a pantomime […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Cape Town | Friday7.00am. WESTERN Cape attorney-general Frank Kahn on Friday indicated he would not accept assault charges laid by either of the two MPs involved in Thursday evening’s punch-up in Parliament, because he has no jurisdiction over the institution. Speaker Dr Frene Ginwala has full jurisdiction over any offence committed in Parliament, […]