Andy Duffy Two Western Cape police officers are likely to be charged for their role in arming vigilantes on the Cape Flats, putting the police on course for a potentially embarrassing and divisive court case. The charges follow a sting operation last year in which police handed back a dud hand grenade to People Against […]

Design of the week : Maria McCloy We’re so used to the cheap, garish, characterless and boring mass-produced album covers of most South African artists (a perfect example is the new Brenda Fassie cover), it’s refreshing to see the cover art created by graphic designer Nicholas Hauser and Coil Productions photographer Lianne Cox. Most of […]

With seven new commercial radio stations, advertisers and listeners are flirting with the dial. Brett Davidson and Ferial Haffajee report Seven new commercial radio stations have jumped on the bandwagon – both FM and Medium Wave – this year, sparking a listening revolution. Station managers say many listeners are flirting with the dial, dipping into […]

Peter Preston Gerald Scarfe was one of the most vicious cartoonist-satirists of the Sixties. He made Harold Wilson lick LBJ’s backside, Richard Nixon wipe his with the American flag. He hacked open heads and let the cortex of politics drip to the floor. He was the scabrous spirit of a slimy age. And now? Meet […]

Andy Duffy One of the country’s most influential ambassadors has rejected an invitation to join Western Cape Premier Hernus Kriel’s provincial Cabinet. Kriel, who is to reshuffle and expand his Cabinet in line with the province’s new Constitution, approached LT Links, South Africa’s ambassador to the European Union, to persuade him to take a seat […]

Madeleine Wackernagel The world’s central banks hold 28 years’ worth of gold supply, and signs are they are not going to step out of the market in a hurry. First Australia, then Russia and the Swiss, and now the Germans have sold down their reserves in the past few months. Other European central banks could […]

A Second Look : Timothy Trengove-Jones aIt is a truism that the love which once dared not speak its name is now unstoppably voluble. On stage, on screen, in the media, yes, even on the streets, homosexuals are articulating their presence with increasing confidence. And, on November 25 1997, almost 100 years after the (in)famous […]

Angella Johnson It was a sunny spring day in September when Andr Swart and his wife Lenie drove through the manicured grounds of their sprawling commercial farm. They had been to church, a high point of the weekly social calendar for their tight-knit Afrikaner farming community. As their car pulled into the garage four men […]

The word scandal is so easily bandied about these days that it has lost some of its meaning. Perhaps, when contemplating the activities of Don Mkhwanazi, head of the Central Energy Fund, it is worth reminding ourselves of the Oxford English Dictionary’s definition of the word: something which occasions “general feeling of outrage and indignation”. […]

Ferial Haffajee At least eight women will have been raped by the time you read to the end of this page. Three years into the new democracy and a woman is still raped every 36 seconds in South Africa, perhaps even more frequently if the growing numbers of reported rapes indicate an increase in the […]