PAEDOPHILE LINKED TO NATS The jailed son of paedophile Gert van Rooyen sparked a new controversy on Sunday with claims in the Sunday Independent that his father had abducted children for cash on behalf of a network that included three former National Party cabinet ministers. The older van Rooyen killed himself in 1991 as police […]

MONDAY, 9.05AM: BAFANA BAFANA suffered major defeat on the eve of their game against Brazil on December 7 at the Ellis Park Stadium, on the hands of Germany in Dusseldorf on Saturday. South Africa lost 3-0. Bafana Bafana, who played without several of their regular players, never looked a threat to the Germans. South Africa […]

MONDAY, 9.30AM: THE Springboks’ star scrumhalf, Joost Westhuizen, could be out of rugby for six months after tearing a groin muscle in the weekend game against France. “Joost could be sidelined for a minimum of three months, possible for as long as six,” confirmed coach Nich Mallett, who will get a final verdict from the […]

MONDAY, 5.15PM: THE Johannesburg Stock Exchange showed modest gains on Monday after ending badly on Friday. The all share index finished 54 points stronger at 6428, the financial index closed 96 points up at 9819 and the industrial index rose 78 points to 7976. The gold index ended 6 points better at 783. The rand […]

MONDAY 2.30AM: SRI LANKA’s media minister Mangala Samaraweera is reported to have told the country’s leading woman athlete that she was “mentally deranged” and resembled “a black South African man.” Sri Lanka’s Sunday Times reported yesterday that sprint star Susanthika Jayasinghe claims to have had an affair with a man the paper describes as a […]

MONDAY, 10.00AM: A DRAFT World Bank study claims South African unemployment rates are largely the fault of what the bank considers the high level of wages paid to black workers. The study, now being circulated in relevant government departments, also warns that the Basic Conditions of Employment Act will increase costs in industries already racked […]

MONDAY, 10AM: A new World Trade Organisation report shows South Africa brought in more anti-dumping measures last year than any other country, a quarter of them targetted at China. Among locally-manufactured items protected against imports from China are textiles, forks, garden equipment and flat glass, while PVC manufacturers here are protected against Brazilian, Taiwainese, French, […]

South African photography has reframed itself in the Nineties, writes Charl Blignaut Had you taken a stroll through Johannesburg’s art galleries five years ago you would most likely have come across precious few shows devoted to photography. And those that were would almost certainly have comprised the kind of slick, dangerous, Pulitzer Prize-winning news photographs […]

Simple, stark and clever This stark advertisement recently netted a Young Creatives award for the Net#Work ad agency’s Graeme Jenner and Paulo Grippa at the Cannes-Lions advertising awards. Pitted against young advertising executives from around the world, the two chose this simple curriculum vitae idea to convey the message that the rapid smashing of the […]

Jonathan Glancey : Architecture Where on earth is this momentous stair, these vertiginous walls angled in on us like a scene from Metropolis or the Cabinet of Dr Caligari? Somewhere between heaven and hell, reached through a doorway in the heart of what was until so very recently East Berlin. This is one of the […]