Staff Reporter

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 […]

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. […]

taking our jobs Chiara Carter and Ferial Haffajee South Africa has become a world in one country in more ways than tourism pundits could ever have predicted. The boundaries of state are becoming less important as waves of migrants seek a better life. Complex trade networks, energetic enterprise and entrepreneurial dreams are the stock-in-trade for […]

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 […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Dar es Salaam | Friday 11.30PM. TANZANIA has expelled five Iraqis and a Libyan who were questioned by the FBI and police in connection of the bombing of the United States embassies in Kenya and Tanzania last month, a newspaper reported Friday. Immigration officials put Libyan Atif Issa Enhamed on a flight to […]

Charl Blignaut On stage in Johannesburg By the time the opening night applause had died down to a cacophany of hearty gels and a veritable nursery of spring bouquets had been trundled on to the Civic Theatre stage and into the sinewy, muscled arms of that world famous troupe of male ballerinas, New York-based Les […]

brothel Michael Finch Commonwealth Games Noise curfews, group photo- graphs, airport delays, buses and goodie bags that offer toiletry sets, shower shoes and, wait for it, a doorstop. Glitz and glamour? More like a stint in the army! That’s what awaited the likes of Chester Williams and Shaun Pollock when they arrived in Kuala Lumpur […]

Chris Roper On show in Cape Town Their name makes me think of some kind of League of Super Heroes, and I picture them in tights and colourful costumes, ta-dahing off into the lurid sunset in pursuit of their evil nemesis, Bad Taste Man. A ridiculous fantasy, brought on by the early hour at which […]

Brenda Atkinson On show in Johannesburg The opening of the Wits group exhibition Histories of the Present was a beautiful moment in contemporary art history. As freakish French multimedia artist Orlan looked on in horror, Steven Cohen douched fake blood onto a cheesy thrift-shop painting of a serenely bare-breasted young girl. Later, Orlan – 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 […]

Christian Figenschou Old cars are generally more of an emotional investment than a financial one, but the rand’s recent slide has widened the scope for speculation in classic cars as commodities. Sought-after collector’s cars have always lagged in value in South Africa compared to overseas markets, and the crumbling of the rand has opened up […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

Phillip Kakaza Feeling stressed out from switching on the radio and getting only hip-hop and R&B? Well, the Belgium-based Afropop group Zap Mama will dose you with acappella and rhythm at Arts Alive on Thursday. At last year’s festival we saw outstanding international acts, like Beninoise funk diva Angelique Kidjo. This year the French Institute […]

syringes Peter Dickson Eastern Cape district surgeon Glen du Preez lost his appeal this week against a conviction for theft and fraud as Judge Willem Heath’s special investigative unit continued to probe allegations of rampant corruption among district surgeons in the province. The former Komga district surgeon and his wife and former co-worker, Elsie du […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

In terms of human development, South Africa ranks third in sub-Saharan Africa, writes Ann Eveleth South Africa jumped one point on the global development scale in the first year of democracy, according to a United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) report released this week. The UNDP Human Development Report 1998 ranks South Africa 89th out of […]

Adam Haupt On stage in Cape Town Evita se Perron hosts the Hello, Darling Festival again this year and promises to provide much entertainment by way of theatre, concerts and cabaret. Whilst Pieter-Dirk Uys’s Tannie Evita Praat Kaktus and Ouma Ossewania Praat Vuil are proven drawcards, the festival has quite a few new and interesting […]

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 […]

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 […]

Andy Capostagno Rugby The Currie Cup originated in Kimberley and there is every chance that this year it is going back there. For Griqualand West, under the coaching of Andre Markgraaff, have progressed this season from worthy underdogs to pedigree contenders; you might say that the rough diamonds have been cut and polished, although their […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Thursday 11.00pm. DELEGATES from the six countries discussing a ceasefire in the Democratic Republic of Congo have adjourned their meeting in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, saying they are expecting “other parties” to join the talks on Friday. Sources at the conference would not say who the “other parties” might be. The meeting […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 Truth and Reconciliation Commission is, as we have observed before, a curious if admirable beast – a combination of attributes which were on display with particular effect this week. There is something wonderfully satisfying about the sight of the likes of General Johan Coetzee and Craig Williamson being subjected to aggressive questioning on their […]

Attacks on farms have soured relationships between farmers and their workers. Swapna Prabhakaran visited a farm where mistrust has grown `The attacks are happening with such regular monotony, I don’t think any fence will keep them out. I know they’ll come back and this time they might kill me or my family,” Colin Reddy says […]

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 […]