Global climate change is spawning deadly epidemics in Africa, writes Fred Pearce For the second time in six months, the world is glimpsing the consequences of escalating climate change. After triggering the choking havoc of smoke from Indonesian forest fires last autumn, the worst El Nio for 50 years has in the past two months […]

Playwright Paul Slabolepszy has had 22 plays staged in almost as many years. So why, asks Charl Blignaut, does he have to impersonate Naas Botha at rugby matches to pay the bills? ‘All I actually want to do is stay home at the computer and write,” says Paul Slabolepszy once we have settled in as […]

Andy Duffy Cape Town City Council has pulled the plug on the car-watch scheme it set up in front of its headquarters, after a flood of complaints that its parking attendants were harassing and robbing motorists. The scheme, piloted early last year and running formally since December, was canned last Friday after the council decided […]

Ferial Haffajee Newspaper magnate Tony O’Reilly jetted into South Africa this week for a regular inspection of his African interests – no doubt he will also make time to heal an important relationship. President Nelson Mandela’s December attack in Mafikeng on foreign-owned media and its abiding white management could not have gone down well with […]

Andy Duffy Five of the Free State’s top education officials have been suspended, badly hampering the province’s management of state schooling. The province, which last week fired education MEC Mxolisi Dukwana, has already seen a stream of old-guard senior officials quit over the past year, including four directors and deputy directors who went in December. […]

At 27, Paul Thomas Anderson is winning plaudits with Boogie Nights, about the early days of blue movies. Jonathan Romney meets the man who has made Burt Reynolds hip again Hollywood in the late nineties is more than ever committed to child’s play, to effects- laden nursery diversions designed to make grown-up money. No wonder […]

Maria McCloy The Independent Broadcasting Authority seems to be taking a more softly-softly approach with Radio Islam. This week the Lenasia-based community station was given another 30-day temporary licence. The IBA said the licence has been granted to enable Radio Islam to continue broadcasting over Haj, the time when Muslims make the annual pilgrimage to […]

Andrea Dworkin Monica Lewinsky is in a terrible, terrible mess. She’s being threatened by a very mean special prosecutor who has unlimited powers. And he plays hard ball. She has my sympathy. Of everyone who is a player in this game, she is the one who is going to be destroyed by it. We are […]

Managed currency funds provide limited-risk offshore investments, writes Dan Atkinson from London As the turmoil on the currency markets abates, there can still be few easier places to make or lose a million. Novice investors are ill-advised to take a ride on roller-coastering foreign exchanges. But managed currency funds will allow the adventurous to play […]