Charl Blignaut : Theatre It’s quarter past 11 on Friday morning and South Africa’s best- known actor, Sello Maake ka-Ncube, is late for our interview. While I wait I read the reviews of his new play Koze Kuse Bash (all-night party) stuck to a pin-board in the atmospheric old foyer of Johannesburg’s Market Theatre. The […]

Andrew Muchineripi : Soccer Initial local reaction to a World Cup draw that had South Africa in Group C with hosts France, Denmark and Saudi Arabia was extremely favourable and national coach Clive Barker smiled and clapped as he discovered who his opponents were. The overwhelming view among Bafana Bafana players, assembled at Midrand for […]

Wally Mbhele With Jacob Zuma undoubtedly assured of election as African National Congress deputy president after Winnie Madikizela- Mandela’s chances were rendered virtually nil, the battle for the party’s national chair will be a focal point at its 50th conference. Having declined his nomination for the chair, Mpumalanga Premier Mathews Phosa has left the contest […]

Despite acclaim, the Second Johannesburg Biennale is likely to close early. What, asks Brenda Atkinson, went wrong? After more than a year of political foreplay and a consummation between Art and the Public that never quite took place, the second Johannesburg Biennale faces closure a month early, following the last-minute withdrawal of funds by the […]

A few years ago the highlight in Dome newspaper was promoting Natal University’s annual rag.No more. The paper’s growing reputation for investigative, controversial journalism was rewarded this week when it was adjudged the Best Student Newspaper of 1997 in the Mail & Guardian/Student Life student media awards. The force behind the paper’s new vibrancy is […]

Art of noise Britain’s Turner Prize, one of the world’s most controversial contemporary art awards, was announced this week. But for once the annual controversy emanated not from the work on show (this year’s winner was a comparatively explicable 15-foot video projection of 26 policemen by Gillian Wearing) but from the behaviour of one of […]

FRIDAY, 12.00NOON: SOUTH African golf star and US Open champion Ernie Els is still in contention for the Johnnie Walker Super Tour and is currently placed third, behind Nick Faldo and Jasper Parnevik after the second round, played in Bangkok, on Thursday. Els, the defending champion, joined Faldo and Parnevik in scoring 1-under 71s to […]

With the ANC’s 50th national conference fast approaching, supporters will be out in force to signal the changing of the guard from Mandela to Mbeki Govan Mbeki fills in a few pieces of the puzzle which constitutes his son, and South Africa’s next president, to David Beresford Govan Mbeki’s voice offers a hint of a […]

Iden Wetherell An unprecedented rebellion by usually docile members of Zimbabwe’s ruling Zanu-PF party and anti-government riots in the capital Harare this week have exposed gaping fissures in the previously monolithic edifice of President Robert Mugabe’s 17-year-old regime. Delegates to a Zanu-PF conference in the eastern city of Mutare refused point blank last Friday to […]

Steve Morris : Rugby It is arguably ironic in the extreme that the return of the Springbok rugby team from their victorious tour of Europe should have both enegendered an armed truce and signalled the departure of the other collection of young men who have done this country so proud. The sight of Minister of […]