Brett Davidson : In your ear The country’s older radio stations have been re-inventing themselves to better compete against the fresh-faced commercial debutants new on the scene. The degree of change is generally in proportion to the level of competition in any given region. On the one end of the scale is 94.7 Highveld Stereo. […]

Andrew Spencer : Golf So, Nick Price has another million dollars. He earned it, as he said after his one-shot win at Sun City last weekend, “the hard way”. Price may not have the fanatical support Ernie Els enjoys among the South African public but, despite the Zimbabwean colours he flies, his roots are sunk […]

How do you win female readers? According to some, the answer is to talk down and to talk dirty. Kamal Ahmed reports from London We have had new man and new lad; yuppies, buppies and dinkies. Now a new species is stalking society – Magazine Woman. A report by the Social Affairs Unit, published recently, […]

Dan Glaister For the second consecutive year, Britain’s 20 000 Turner Prize has been awarded to a video artist. The prize was presented to Gillian Wearing by the British Culture Secretary Chris Smith at the Tate Gallery in London. Her victory over the three other women on the prize’s first all-woman shortlist confirms the dominance […]

Social worker Tshengesiwe Mthembu was walking to work last Saturday morning when she found herself caught up in a modern-day pass raid. Yeoville police were cruising the street in search of “illegal immigrants”. They were stopping individuals – all black – asking them to speak their home language, questioning them on key words and making […]

Andy Duffy One of South Africa’s top policemen has given controversial businessman Vito Palazzolo a written undertaking that a long-running police probe found nothing on him. The extraordinary statement, written in consultation with Palazzolo, badly damages and may even derail attempts by the Italian and South African authorities to investigate Palazzolo for alleged criminal activities. […]

Ferial Haffajee `What could women’s magazines be like if they were as editorially free as books? As realistic as newspapers? As creative as films? As diverse as women’s lives? We don’t know” – wrote Gloria Steinem in 1990, The article is reproduced in ms magazine’s October issue because its editors believe her argument still stands […]

The foot soldiers of an economic empire in decline plod on, writes Andrew Higgins Electronic panels flashing orange-coloured numbers crack the calm of the salaryman, dispirited foot soldier of an economic empire in retreat. The figures, on display in Tokyo’s financial district, relate not to the collapsing share prices of Japan’s brittle banks but something […]

Robert Kirby : Loose cannon With yet another Christmas spree about to bankrupt us, this is the time when it’s expected of responsible columnists to make an effort to reflect perceptively on the year just fled. It’s quite hard. Where do you start in trying to summarise, say, the corruption and general criminality of 1997’s […]