Staff Reporter

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Cairo | Sunday 8.30PM. THE Arab League, attempting to negotiate a way for the Lockerbie trial to go ahead, has proposed that Libya and the Netherlands sign a pre-trial agreement spelling out details surrounding the prosecution of Libyan suspects. Arab League chief Esmat Abdel Meguid has held separate meetings with the British ambassador […]

Emma Durden Dance in Durban The Kwa-Suka Theatre, usually home to Durban’s experimental drama offerings, is currently awash with rich swirls of tangerine, pimento olive and deep wine. Camino Flamenco is an exuberant hour and a half of traditional Spanish dance put together by Linda Vargas of the Spanish Dance Company and her husband, the […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Addis Ababa | Friday 6.30pm. A RIFT has developed in the Addis Ababa talks aimed at brokering a ceasefire in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Both Uganda and Rwanda, accused by DRC President Laurent Kabila of invading the DRC, have demanded that the rebel leaders be invited to the talks. The DRC delegation […]

Belinda Beresford gives a few handy tips on how to survive in a wild financial world You might have been getting by with a little help from your friendly bank manager, but now the world economy seems to be going for a walk on the wild side and the most immediate effect for many South […]

The streets of Pretoria are becoming increasingly dangerous for sex workers, reports Tangeni Amupadhi Prostitutes walking the dark streets of Pretoria know that danger lurks around any corner. But they were particularly anxious this week, following the murder of a co-worker. The body of an as yet unidentified prostitute was found lying face-up in a […]

Sechaba ka’Nkosi The council of the Vaal Triangle Technikon was scrambling this week to stave off threats by Minister of Education Sibusiso Bengu to suspend its state grants and disband the council. Bengu sent a memo to the technikon last Friday, advising the council of his readiness to take such action if it does not […]

Marina Benjamin A Second Look When the expectation of crisis at the last century’s end failed to give Oscar Wilde a sufficiently satisfying frisson, he famously complained: “It’s the fin de sicle. I wish it were fin du monde.” Would that he were here to conjure a suitable epigram today. For as this century draws […]

Chiara Carter Arefugee Bill about to be tabled in Parliament will provide for the processing of applications for asylum within three to six months. The Bill, which is being certified by the state law advisers, is based on a draft White Paper completed earlier this year. Migrants and refugees to South Africa have fallen under […]

of closet Anthony Kunda Gay men and lesbians in Zambia have formed an organisation to represent their interests, despite government threats to arrest them. Gershom Musonda, project manager of Lesbians, Gays, Bisexual and Transgender Persons Association (Legatra), says the country’s homosexuals face constant harassment and victimisation. “The Zambian gay community has suffered silently, living as […]

Donna Block If miners and a few metals analysts are to be believed, gold is golden once more. They say the precious metal, up from 19-year lows, is poised for a major comeback. But the glitter might not be as bright as those who dig it out of the ground are hoping. Metal markets are […]

Chris Gordon Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni has proposed a separate deal to Angola’s Jos Eduardo dos Santos to stand back from the conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo – a move that could tip the civil war in the favour of the Congolese rebels and pave the way for a new regional order in […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Welkom | Friday 11.00PM. GRIQUAS continued their run of success in the Bankfin Currie Cup rugby competition when they beat Northern Free State 52-19 in Welkom’s North West Stadium on Friday night. Griquas did everything at a cracking pace and ran in five tries during the first 35 minutes to chalk up a […]

Mungo Soggot The state oil company’s efforts to discipline its former chief, Kobus van Zyl, took a bizarre twist this week when the company decided to abandon his disciplinary inquiry and replace it with an internal probe. The disciplinary inquiry’s head was from outside the Strategic Fuel Fund (SFF) and Van Zyl was allowed legal […]

money Chiara Carter Jailed Vlakplaas commander Eugene de Kock has been approached to provide information about the missing millions squirrelled away in apartheid-era slush funds. An investigation is under way into claims that a unit set up to find the missing money has itself been misusing state funds. The National Intelligence Agency’s (NIA)request to De […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Friday 4.00PM. ZIMBABWEAN and Angolan troops are accused of killing dozens of unarmed civilians in the Democratic republic of Congo with “indiscriminate shelling of Kinshasa suburbs” in an Amnesty International open letter to Presidents Robert Mugabe and Nelson Mandela. Pierre San, the secretary general of Amnesty International, has written an open […]

Dan Jellinek People living in some of the world’s most oppressive regimes are using the Internet to engage in civic and political activity, according to a leading international human rights activist. Jean-Paul Marthoz, of the Brussels- based group Human Rights Watch, last month told an Outlook for Freedom conference in Budapest that the Web is […]

Proving the `moonshine conjecture’ won Professor Richard Borcherds the maths equivalent of the Nobel prize. He tells Simon Singh about the trials of living in a world few can enter There is a – probably – apocryphal explanation for why no Nobel prize has ever been awarded for mathematics. The story goes that Alfred Nobel’s […]

Impotence may be a thing of the past with the advent of Viagra, but the drug does not have the power to re- invent a loving relationship, writes John Illman Viagra could be a marriage wrecker, according to a leading psychosexual expert whose warning about the impotence pill has major implications for hundreds of thousands […]

Suzy Bell On show in Durban When the entire Playhouse Dance Company was retrenched at the end of March this year, our Durban dancers were reeling with the rude shock. But instead of whingeing, Mark Hawkins, the ballsy former artistic director of the Playhouse Company, founded The Fantastic Flying Fish Dance Company, one of the […]

Sechaba ka’Nkosi A controversial Northern Cape clergyman officially represented the province’s Department of Housing and Local Government at state expense, despite his shady background and the fact he was not an employee of the provincial administration. The Reverend Jacob Phenyeke was given a hired car to use for three days by MEC Pakes Dikgetsi in […]

Ivor Powell predicts that sparks will fly at the SADC summit when member states discuss the Organ on Politics, Defence and Security All has not been well for some time now in the Southern African Development Community (SADC). But things could get a lot worse at the regional conference’s annual summit in Mauritius this weekend. […]

Alexander McQueen asked some of fashion’s leading designers to dress people with physical disabilities. His aim? Not to change the world, but to challenge our perceptions of beauty. By Susannah Frankel `W hat do you think?” asks Aimee Mullins. “Pretty funky, isn’t it?” It is, on the face of it, just like any other studio […]

Nicholas Dawes Live in Cape Town Amampondo leader Dizu Plaatjies is one of the more popular teachers at the University of Cape Town’s College of Music, where he teaches African instruments and dance. The role is not one he sheds easily, and when “Madiba’s favourite band” played at the Drum Cafe in Gardens last Saturday, […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Cape Town | Friday 11.00PM. JOMO Cosmos advanced to the quarter-finals of the Rothmans Cup on the away goals rule when they came from behind to equalise against Santos in a hard 1-1 draw played at the Athlone Stadium in Cape Town on Friday night. Santos opened the score in the 65th minute […]

Ros Davidson Highland Games California might seem a strange place to stage Highland Games, but that is not the only unusual feature of this weekend’s 133rd annual Scottish Games and Gathering near San Francisco. For alongside the men in kilts throwing huge wooden cabers and lumps of granite will be the graceful form of Shannon […]

JUSTIN ARENSTEIN, Nelspruit | Friday 2.30pm. MPUMALANGA finance MEC Jacques Modipane on Friday again refused to explain why he failed to warn the Reserve Bank or any other government fiscal body about an illegal R500-million offshore loan deal entered into by the Mpumalanga Parks Board (MPB) last year. Modipane conceded that the International Bank of […]

Kitchener A Sudanese MP wants one of Britain’s most revered heroes to be classed as a war criminal. Ian Black reports Britain has no plans to apologise to Sudan for Lord Horatio Kitchener’s behaviour at the end of the 19th century – a demand Khartoum may be planning to lump together with one from Washington […]

Martin Thorpe Soccer Arsenal and Manchester United stepped into line last week by agreeing to discontinue talks with the proposed Super League and seek change to Europe’s club competitions through official channels. All 20 Premiership clubs agreed the same rules after meeting to hear Gerhard Aigner, United European Football Association’s (Uefa) general secretary, assure them […]

Winning eight Lions at the Cannes awards this year, the South African advertising industry has shown it has the talent for temptation. Alex Dodd reports I exit the cinema feeling a bit like a latter day Phineas Fogg. I’ve seen the world and it’s taken me a whole lot less than 80 days. In more […]

Alex Sudheim On show in Durban Fifty years ago, the French photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson began pioneering the concept of photojournalism as an art form. With his spontaneous and sympathetic images of everyday life on the street, he removed photography from the stuffy confines of the studio and breathed into it the energy and immediacy of […]

MICHAEL METELITS, Johannesburg | Thursday 6.30pm. A plummeting Dow, and little help from overseas investors rocked the share and bond markets on Thursday. Traders suggested that bonds will only pick up if the rand breaks out of the R6,23 to the dollar range. The bright spot was the rising price of gold, which pushed gold […]

performance David Beresford `Castro is a lion,” sang the South African Communist Party choir enthusiastically. At 71, Fidel Castro cut a somewhat aged king of the jungle. Nevertheless, the comparison seemed a fair one as the Cuban leader, with grizzled mane and beard, clambered out of his Mercedes Benz in Soweto on Saturday and made […]