Staff Reporter

backside Howard Barrell: OVER A BARREL An assumption commonly made in our politics is that good intentions must have good results. Another is that if you or I question the way someone goes about trying to achieve a result, this means we believe he or she has lousy intentions. Neither follows. The road to hell […]

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 […]

Robert Armstrong Rugby It was the briefest of exiles. Less than 24 hours after being thrown out of the Five Nations Championship, England were reinstated with farcical speed after agreeing this week to toe the line laid down by the tournament’s governing committee. Their expulsion was overturned shortly after Rugby Football Union representatives gave unconditional […]

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 […]

A new White Paper outlines what steps needs to be taken to ensure victims of disasters will have speedy access to emergency assistance, writes Janet Love Yet another tornado charged through the Eastern Cape this week, leaving a trail of destruction and devastation in the Mount Ayliff and Tabankulu districts. The police station, the school, […]

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 […]

Food: Alex Dodd With places like Mo Better Noodles, Chohk Dee Thai, El Turko, El Cubano and Mezze, Durban is fast becoming a contender for the chi chi cuisine capital of South Africa. Somehow each establishment’s signature feel and attention to detail leaves you feeling like the Banana City’s on the money. There’s a currency […]

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 […]

Loose cannon Robert Kirby Let me be among the last to criticise that fine fellow, Minister of Finance Trevor Manuel. His is a thankless job simply because, when tossing the public coin, there are not only too many takers but all they ever do is squeal for more. Can you remember the occasion when any […]

Andy Capostagno Cricket The Wanderers has been sold out for Friday’s opening match of the one-day series between South Africa and the West Indies. What does that tell us? That the South African selectors have chosen a squad with broad appeal? That the West Indies are only likely to provide token resistance? Or is it […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

Friday night: Brandon Edmonds Summers in Durban are like David Lean movies: long, epic and strangely alluring. They make you dream about backstroking through molten lava. At least dressing is pared down to essentials. Basically, as little as is decent. That most clubs and bars stick to Ralph Laurenesque colonial decorum, read “no shorts”, is […]

Mpumalanga’s premier introduced Dolphin president Ketan Somaia to Minister of Defence Joe Modise in connection with an arms deal with Kenya, writes Justin Arenstein The Dubai-based Dolphin Group wasn’t just gunning for Mpumalanga’s game reserves when it nailed a secret R25- billion contract with the province’s parks board in 1996 – it also tried to […]

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 […]

CLIVE WILSON, managing director of the Zimbabwe Standard newspaper was arrested on Friday. This follows the release on bail of Standard editor Mark Chavunduka and senior journalist Ray Choto on Thursday after being detained by the military for a story about an alleged coup plot against the government. More to come. 21

of the past Sergeant at the Bar The past year may well prove to be a watershed in the history of the post- apartheid judiciary. In 1998, the Judicial Service Commission made a few appointments which were not only controversial, but perhaps precedent setting. As a result, Judge Bernard Ngoepe became the judge president of […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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: […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]