Staff Reporter

MILO the six-month-old Jack Russell terrier is in critical condition after surviving seven hours of open heart surgery for a severe congenital heart defect on Thursday. The dog is recovering in the University of Cape Town’s animal laboratory, where it is expected to remain on the critical list for at least 24 hours. Medical team […]

The London art scene is currently caught in the web of influential French artist Louise Borgeois’s latest exhibition. Adrian Searle reports Louise Bourgeois turned 87 on Christmas Day. She could be just another batty old biddy, with her interminable reminiscences, her total recall and false memories, but for one irreducible fact: she is one of […]

David Beresford: A SECOND LOOK There is something gloriously tragic about the story of the Afrikaners’ search for a national identity and a home to call their own: the flight from the Cape, the jubilant discovery of the Nile (wrong stream, but what the heck) and their arrival in their garden of Eden, only to […]

the ball game The US media is obsessed with impeachment. But the people believe life has rarely been so sweet, says Ed Vulliamy During the week that the first impeachment trial of a United States president this century began in earnest, another record bit the dust. This one concerned the proverbial diamond-in-the-dust, as it happens: […]

Matthew Krouse Down the tube E.tv’s first News broadcast, last Sunday, seemed more electrifying than it actually was. It had the veneer of something urgent and new. But some of the more shocking images were old, and some of the language seemed hyped. To start, the upbeat logo music pumped in over a blue montage […]

economy, stupid Beneath the triumphalism and euphoria, a deep unease pervades Middle America, argues Robert Kuttner Yes, in many respects life in the United States has never been better. But there are four notable soft spots in the American utopia: insecurity, holes in the welfare state, inequality and stress. First, insecurity: social critic Richard Sennett […]

Last week’s fresh fears prompted by the Brazilian debacle were replaced by a sigh of relief from world markets when Brazil allowed the real to float against the dollar. Indices and stocks which had surged after the new year and went into a dizzying tailspin when the failure of a minor Brazilian province to repay […]

Checking your credit record regularly can save you money. Belinda Beresford explains how They know your name and where to find you. They know where you shop, how much you’ve spent and how high your cellphone bill is. They are the credit bureaux: collectors and vendors of information, about you, me, the person next door […]

Andy Capostagno Golf If there is one thing guaranteed to worry most of the world’s best golfers it is the sight of Ernie Els looking relaxed. The big man showed up at Stellenbosch Golf Club on Wednesday looking bronzed and unshaven, as if he had celebrated winning the Alfred Dunhill PGA by chilling out on […]

Shaw contract Mungo Soggot The Serious Economic Offences branch of the national prosecuting authority is to interview directors of the Central Energy Fund (CEF) about the award of a R3-million contract to a company run by Liberian politician Emanuel Shaw II. The head of the Investigating Directorate (Serious Economic Offences), Jan Swanepoel, confirmed his office […]

Mungo Soggot The world’s most famous pop star exchanged his trademark white glove for a yarmulke last weekend when he attended a bar mitzvah at the Sandton synagogue and nearby Capri hotel in Johannesburg. Michael Jackson jetted in from the United States especially for the event, stunning guests with his enthusiastic participation in the festivities. […]

Chiara Carter Northern Cape Premier Manne Dipico is convinced the African National Congress is positioned to wrest coloured votes from the New National Party and win the province outright in the coming elections. The province’s election race is likely to be closely watched because it is one of few where the government could change hands […]

ceasefire bid Howard Barrell South African diplomacy lay behind the potential breakthrough achieved this week in attempts to end the war in the Democratic Republic of Congo when five neighbouring countries involved in the fighting committed themselves to signing a ceasefire agreement. Ironically, however, South Africa was sidelined from the summit in the Namibian capital, […]

Mark James DOG HEART by Breyten Breytenbach (Human & Rousseau) If there is one point where politics, art and religion intersect in the current cultural life of this country, it is in the rage for confession. With differing degrees of enthusiasm, the whole country is at it, mesmerised by it, implicated in it. After the […]

dispute Ann Eveleth The controversial Johannesburg lawyer who championed the rights of fathers in the Lawrie Frasier adoption saga was last month ordered by the Cape High Court to return his nine-year-old child to his estranged wife in Cape Town. Peter Soller was ordered to return his son to Nancy Soller on December 28 after […]

The latest spin on the trend of international DJs like John Digweed, Sasha, Paul Okenfold and Carl Cox gracing local clubland with their zeitgeist sounds is a kicking new deal between Virgin Records, 206 live, Pickle and the UK’s leading Big Beat label Wall of Sound Recordings. As two of South Africa’s largest supporters of […]

Donna Block:SHARE WORLD Have you got nerves of steel, a cast- iron stomach and access to a computer with a connection to the global network? If so, then you can become part of a small but growing group of independent investors known as “day traders”. Unlike traditional or online investing, where investors hang on to […]

FOUR leaders of the Inkatha Freedom Party in the KwaZulu-Natal midlands have defected to the African National Congress. David Mdladla, Mbuso Memela and Johannes and Mzofayo Phoswa, from the Bulwer and Donnybrook areas, said at a press conference in Durban that they have joined the ANC. The four said they quit the IFP because it […]

David Atkinson Think Hong Kong. Think towering skyscrapers to rival Manhattan. Think scoffing noodles at 2am under the glare of flashing neon. Think rubbing shoulders with Filipino hookers and Triad gangland crime bosses in seedy late night drinking dens straight out of Blade Runner. Think again. Ask any Chinese-bred Hong Kong resident what image symbolises […]

Andrew Muchineripi Soccer In a compact, white-walled room with a yellow door, a well-worn greyish carpet and small windows covered by rattling venetian blinds, Bafana Bafana coach Trott Moloto laid bare his soul this week. It was Tuesday, the temperature had climbed to 30C by midday at the Esselenpark complex north-east of Johannesburg and the […]

Dan Atkinson in London An infamous headline in a business newspaper is said to have reported the 1938 Munich Agreement thus: “Shares fall on peace fears,” and then there was the character in the film Reds who, asked what World War Iwas about, replied: “Profits.” The events of recent weeks prompt thoughts about the effects […]

Andrew Worsdale Movie of the week The concept of characters moving in and out of film and television screens seems to have become a distinctive new genre. Woody Allen’s fabulous 1985 comedy- fantasy, The Purple Rose of Cairo, had Jeff Daniels climbing down from the big screen, driven by his passion for a member of […]

Wally Mbhele and Justin Arenstein Mpumalanga refused to learn from its 1995 Eugene Nyati scandal and instead secretly contracted the discredited political analyst less than one year later – only to be fleeced by the smooth-talking wheeler-dealer again. New information leaked this week indicates that Nyati used more than R200 000 intended for a tourism […]

Libby Brooks:FIRST PERSON You’ve got Mail, a romantic comedy, stars Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan as bookshop owners who hate each other in real life but fall in love in cyberspace. Plausibility of plot and sex appeal aside, the film delivers one interesting contemporary comment: it is now as likely for a woman to rush […]

Evidence wa ka Ngobeni It’s a hot Saturday morning in the rural village of Stinkwater, North-West province. Hundreds of residents and government officials have gathered to honour a group of youngsters committed to cleaning up their village. Stinkwater, near Hammanskraal, is among the 50% of South Africa’s townships, villages and informal settlements which do not […]

Willie Hofmeyr, African National Congress MP, responds on this page to our January 15 to 21 editorial concerning the country’s lamentable record on crime. His point is that the government is committed to deterring and imprisoning criminals – an assurance he and many of his colleagues no doubt believe has been borne out by the […]

Writer Ashraf Jamal has never shied away from epic and dangerous themes. Andr Wiesner finds that happiness hasn’t removed his sting Playwright Ashraf Jamal is flipping through a pad of photographs, and the portraits they reveal look cindered, burnt black and grey by the intensity of their subjects. In one image, a blood-streaked Billy Idol-lookalike […]

parole Tangeni Amupadhi The Department of Correctional Services deemed Samuel Sidymo fit to be freed on parole nine months before completing his sentence. But one day after he broke his parole conditions Pretoria police arrested him on suspicion that he is a serial murderer who went on a killing spree from December 1998 to January […]

ago Jill Treanor and Phillip Inman Punters who invested 100 on the London stock market at the end of World War Iwould have been able to buy their dream millionaire mansion by the end of last year. The gamble on stocks would have catapulted the punter into the exclusive six-figure club much faster than those […]

Michael Brooks meets research director Karl Kummerle and tries on a computer for size Some Japanese girls are waving and dancing 3cm in front of my right eye. No one else can see them, or hear the music in my ear. I can, with a bit of focusing effort, look right through their bobbing heads. […]

NIGERIAN former military ruler General Olusegun Obasanjo has won a promise of support from key leaders of the centrist Peoples Democratic Party in his bid for the presidential nomination. Obasanjo said on November 3 that he wanted to run for the country’s highest office 20 years after he last held power, and will be the […]

Sechaba ka’Nkosi reports that Lesotho’s fragile peace is at stake Lesotho is teetering on the brink of another crisis as relations among political parties in the Independent Political Authority (IPA) reached an all-time low this week. The impasse between the ruling Lesotho Congress for Democracy (LCD) and opposition parties has cast doubts about the country’s […]