Once upon a time, long before the heady days of El Nino, South African TV drama was as soft as an English muffin and as wet as English weather. The Importance of Being Earnest and Charlie’s Aunt were the primary ingredients of our homemade white bread in the 1970s and 1980s — and you may […]

Stefaans Brummer Evidence against Gauteng Premier Mathole Motshekga mounted this week when it emerged that the United States embassy in Pretoria had serious reservations about his administration of donor money in 1989. The Mail & Guardian earlier reported that the Irish organisation Trocaire, a conduit for European Union donor money, severed links with Motshekga’s National […]

Neil Manthorpe : Cricket He was desperately keen to tour England again, to finish his remarkable career in the land where the game of cricket began and where he would have time to ease an understudy into the job. But now Dave Richardson has gone, just like that. No fuss, no fanfare, no tears. None […]

Ferial Haffajee ‘It’s difficult getting the message through by committee,” says Dominic Ntsele, managing director of ad agency Young & Rubicam. Last year, Ntsele headed a creative team working to highlight the endemic levels of child abuse, rape and battery in the country, ahead of the Men’s March in November, through a high-profile media campaign. […]

Moi Lucy Hannan in Nairobi Dismay at recent political killings overshadowed the opening session of the Kenyan Parliament this week. Both sides of the house stamped, shouted and jeered, and opposition MPs waved placards protesting at “genocide” and “a legacy of killing”. More than 100 people have been killed in Rift Valley province since January […]

R6,7-million Ann Eveleth A South African Airways (SAA) manager found guilty of serious misconduct costing the state airline an estimated R6,7-million was not fired because the SAA employee who presided over his inquiry could not “sleep with the dismissal decision”. This “crisis of conscience” is reported in an internal audit completed by Transnet Group auditors […]

Andrew Worsdale and Janet Smith Realised on an amazingly tight budget of less than R11 000 per minute, Natural Rhythm came cheap. Yet it could also inadvertently be the first trickle in a stream of new local soaps on public service TV. Waspish, high-class, politically pungent, carcinoma-induced soap opera, it introduces us to white women […]

Adam Haupt On stage in Cape Town The Buwa Theatre Company is currently hosting the FNB Vita/ City of Cape Town/ Ikhwezi Community Theatre Festival at the Baxter Theatre until February 7. This festival is singular because community theatre seldom finds its way into mainstream theatre spaces such as the Baxter. Apart from the fact […]

Alex Brummer and Larry Elliott Radical changes in the operations of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank are to be proposed by finance ministers at a meeting in London later this month in response to the Asian crisis. The plans for adjusting the role of the IMF and the World Bank, to put […]