Experimental choreographer Robyn Orlin previews the most magnetic work on offer at this year’s wildly varied [email protected] festival When the first scent of jasmine hits Johannesburg it’s the signal that Arts Alive, the festival that wakes the city from its winter slumber, is hotly imminent. This year is the Dance Factory’s sixth annual festival in […]

Wonder Hlongwa South Africa’s branch of the international corruption watchdog Transparency International has accused certain newspapers of feeding public perceptions that corruption increased after the African National Congress took power. In its first report since its inception last year, Transparency International South Africa (Tisa) accuses the newspapers of being influenced by their political agendas. It […]

The investigation into the Mpumalanga Parks Board’s dodgy deals is to be carried out in secret, reports Justin Arenstein from Nelspruit Judge Willem Heath personally took control this week of investigations into a dodgy R340-million offshore loan deal set up by the Mpumalanga Parks Board, and promptly threw a blanket of secrecy over his special […]

John Grobler The first body bags arrived in Namibia from Kinshasa this week as a credibility gap as wide as the Congo started opening up around President Sam Nujoma. After days of obdurate denials, the Ministry of Defence confirmed this week that Namibian Defence Force (NDF) soldier Lazarus Hiskia had been killed in fighting on […]

Charl Blignaut On stage in Johannesburg It seemed like it was never going to happen; the eagerly-awaited moment when Johannesburg’s performance underground would raise itself from latex-clad haunches and step into the mainstream clubland spotlight. The first public suspension in a Johannesburg nightclub; theatre for 2000. Two boys, 40 hooks, a metre off the ground […]

Sechaba ka’Nkosi A high-level investigation headed by Eastern Cape Premier Makhenkesi Stofile into allegations that three senior provincial African National Congress members are “ANC members during the day and United Democratic Movement members by night” has run into snags. The people who first made the allegations against the three party members have failed to provide […]

Kenyan scientist Joyce Poole, an expert on elephant behaviour, comments on the recent kidnapping of baby elephants from Botswana As a scientist who has spent two decades studying the social behaviour and vocal communication of elephants, I have been asked to comment on the capture of 50 baby elephants in the Tuli Block, Botswana. It […]

Will Hutton A Second Look Ever since the financial crisis erupted in Thailand last June, the consensus view in the West has consistently misunderstood and played down the dimensions of what is now the most serious threat to the world economy since World War II. The calamitous misdiagnosis has reinforced the West’s leaders in their […]

Robert Kirby: Loose cannon I hope this isn’t too naive a question, but do we still have a minister of environment? I seem to recall that Pallo Jordan was in charge of that area. The last I heard of him was when he gallantly saved some rare butterflies from being wiped off the planet in […]

Tim Radford Japanese and Irish researchers have begun to build a virtual guinea pig – a computer code version of a human who would be used to test the effects of powerful new drugs. The project is called Psudo, which stands for parallel simulation of drug release code. But it is likely to be dubbed […]