Staff Reporter

Many thousands of women undergo plastic surgery to alter their looks, but when Orlan does it, it’s called art. Alex Dodd reports `In the future we will change our bodies as easily as we change our hair colour,” says radical French performance artist Orlan, currently in Johannesburg. She is participating in a conference at the […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Cape Town | Friday 7.00pm. THERE are still two South Africas and they should not be termed white and black, but rich and poor, Cuban President Fidel Castro told Parliament to thunderous applause on Friday. The one South Africa, Castro continued, receives 12 times the income of the other; in the one 100% […]

Keith Thomas ON HISTORY by Eric Hobsbawm (Abacus) Eric Hobsbawm turned 80 last year. He is probably the best-known living British historian, certainly the one whose work has been translated into the most languages. He brings to his historical writing some outstanding gifts: a probing intelligence, exceptional analytic power, great linguistic facility and an extremely […]

Ann Eveleth and Khareen Pech South African troops could soon enter the war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo as part of a 30 000-strong international peacekeeping force tasked to end the month-old conflict. The planned emergency force – mooted during a series of crisis talks in Durban this week – would draw together a combined total […]

Experimental choreographer Robyn Orlin previews the most magnetic work on offer at this year’s wildly varied [email protected] festival When the first scent of jasmine hits Johannesburg it’s the signal that Arts Alive, the festival that wakes the city from its winter slumber, is hotly imminent. This year is the Dance Factory’s sixth annual festival in […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Lusaka | Friday 4.30pm. ZAMBIAN Home Affairs Minister Peter Machungwa on Friday threatened to arrest the leaders of a newly formed movement of gays and lesbians should they try to register the association. Homosexuality is a felony which carries a a minimum prison sentence of 14 years in Zambia and is, Machungwa explained, […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Cape Town | Friday 9.15pm. MINERAL and Energy Minister Penuell Maduna on Friday apologised to Parliament for inappropriately accusing Auditor-General Henri Kluever of covering up losses of R170-million in the Strategic Fuel Fund in Parliament in June 1997. Maduna’s apology comes after a multi-party parliamentary committee probing the subject for over a year […]

Michael Finch Commonwealth Games Dope tests on lawn bowlers? Believe it. That’s how serious the South African team is taking its participation in the Commonwealth Games starting in Kuala Lumpur next week. Despite 13 medal-melting withdrawals, including athletics gold medal certainty Llewellyn Herbert, the team will travel to their second Commonwealth Games almost sure to […]

Wonder Hlongwa South Africa’s branch of the international corruption watchdog Transparency International has accused certain newspapers of feeding public perceptions that corruption increased after the African National Congress took power. In its first report since its inception last year, Transparency International South Africa (Tisa) accuses the newspapers of being influenced by their political agendas. It […]

Moulded into the plastic soles of my father’s bedroom slippers were the words: “Man-made Materials.” As a child, I pondered that phrase for years. What, exactly, is a man-made material? Where did “man” get the stuff he “made” it from? And if he got it from somewhere and merely melted it down with something else, […]

theatre Matthew Krouse In the heart of Hillbrow, on Saturday June 20, the creme of Johannesburg’s gay intelligensia sat alongside their ordinary city counterparts, anticipating the first performance of a long-awaited play, emanating from unexpected quarters. The Harrison Reef Hotel, where the performance was to take place, is legendary. Home to Johannesburg’s oldest gay bar, […]

Mail & Guardian reporter Employees who are fed up with the nonsensical vocabulary and endless meetings of the modern workplace have found a way to undermine both with a new pastime: Buzzword Bingo. Instead of numbers, bingo cards are filled with the platitudes of business speak – terms such as “add value”, “going forward”, “synergy”, […]

The investigation into the Mpumalanga Parks Board’s dodgy deals is to be carried out in secret, reports Justin Arenstein from Nelspruit Judge Willem Heath personally took control this week of investigations into a dodgy R340-million offshore loan deal set up by the Mpumalanga Parks Board, and promptly threw a blanket of secrecy over his special […]

Joseph Kahn `From the standpoint of the United States economy, Russia does not matter.” That was the line coming from US stock market optimists until late last week. Of all US exports, the reasoning went, less than 1% were to Russia. The Russian economy is no larger than that of the Netherlands. Few people invest […]

victory Evidence wa ka Ngobeni The spirit of the rainbow nation came to haunt black student organisations at Pretoria Technikon this week when the Freedom Front won the Student Representative Council (SRC) elections. A number of the FF’s 756 winning votes were cast by black students. The party has only been organising on the campus […]

David Sharrock in Zahara de los Atunes, Spain The rich, beautiful and powerful of Spanish society have chosen this wild corner of the Costa de la Luz, on the Atlantic side of the Rock of Gibraltar, as this summer’s place to see and be seen. But by night the beaches play host to a desperate […]

John Grobler The first body bags arrived in Namibia from Kinshasa this week as a credibility gap as wide as the Congo started opening up around President Sam Nujoma. After days of obdurate denials, the Ministry of Defence confirmed this week that Namibian Defence Force (NDF) soldier Lazarus Hiskia had been killed in fighting on […]

Andy Capostagno Rugby The Currie Cup has reached its halfway stage and no one is yet counting any chickens. That in itself is remarkable, for the competition has been shared between an elite four provinces for so long that at the very least a well-informed guess should be able to provide the semi-finalists. Natal have […]

Traditional chiefs may abstain from voting in next year’s elections, writes Sechaba ka’Nkosi KwaZulu-Natal chiefs who voted for the African National Congress in the last election are signalling they are likely to abstain from party political activity in next year’s election. At the heart of their dissension is unhappiness with the recognition and remuneration they […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Freetown | Friday 8.30PM. THE rebel leader who instigated Sierra Leone’s civil war in 1991 has been charged with treason in Freetown. Foday Sankoh, head of the Revolutionary United Front, was led into a Freetown courtroom under heavy guard on Friday. He made no plea, and his case has been adjourned to September […]

Charl Blignaut On stage in Johannesburg It seemed like it was never going to happen; the eagerly-awaited moment when Johannesburg’s performance underground would raise itself from latex-clad haunches and step into the mainstream clubland spotlight. The first public suspension in a Johannesburg nightclub; theatre for 2000. Two boys, 40 hooks, a metre off the ground […]

Swapna Prabhakaran The trials of the alleged kingpin of a major KwaZulu-Natal crime ring – known as the “Curry Mafia” -were this week adjourned until late next year, because the Pretoria courts are too busy to deal with the matter now. Pietermaritzburg businessman Suresh “Surie” Maharaj will appear before court in three trials set down […]

Suzy Bell On show in Durban There’s a mighty fine poetic clerk working in the corporation department in Durban, whose head is a-swim with splicing Strauss, Shakespeare, Mozart and Milton, together with baubles and beads collected from Las Vegas, Paris and Durban. He is performance artist Vernon Burns, who has designed eight highly operatic costumes […]

JUSTIN ARENSTEIN, Nelspruit | Friday 5.30PM. THREE promissory notes worth US$50-million which were issued by Mpumalanga’s Parks Board are legally binding and could potentially be used to take ownership of the province’s core game parks, Judge Willem Heath said on Friday. The notes, which are still in America but will be returned to South Africa […]

Sechaba ka’Nkosi A high-level investigation headed by Eastern Cape Premier Makhenkesi Stofile into allegations that three senior provincial African National Congress members are “ANC members during the day and United Democratic Movement members by night” has run into snags. The people who first made the allegations against the three party members have failed to provide […]

Arundhati Roy took the literary world by storm last year with her first novel, The God of Small Things, which won the Booker prize. In her first piece of writing since then, she expresses her horror at the nuclear arms race in her native India “The desert shook,” the government of India informed us (its […]

Brenda Atkinson Multimedia The world of William Kentridge is one of considerable public profile, prolific artistic production, and enigmatic private symbolism. South Africa’s most acclaimed artist, his conceptual and aesthetic sensibilities have brought him growing critical kudos over the decades. But despite his international ubiquity, Kentridge remains something of a dark horse. Reserved in interviews […]

Melvyn Minnaar Wine Versace probably would have liked this. While certainly not flamboyantly haute couture, Versus would have appealed to him and Donnatella, who would not have turned down a glass or two of this prt- a-porter wine. And not only because it too goes under the same name as their garments and potions for […]

Mungo Soggot It does not take long to grasp why those familiar with Monrovia scoff in disbelief when they hear that Emanuel Shaw II says he checked into the John F Kennedy Medical Centre. It was once considered to be one of West Africa’s finest medical facilities, but is now the public hospital for the […]

Richard Jago Tennis Martina Hingis made tennis history in a meteoric rise to the top of the women’s game. At the start of the year she led the rankings by 3E000 points and her position as number one seemed impregnable. Then in May she lost to Anna Kournikova in Berlin – and cracks began to […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Friday 5.00pm. DEMOCRATIC Republic of Congo rebel leader Ernest Wamba dia Wamba on Friday said he is considering his movement’s participation in the all-party peace talks called on Thursday by Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe. Wamba admitted, however, that the rebel movement has not yet received an invitation to the talks. Announcing […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Thursday 9.00pm. PREMIER Soccer League spokesman Andrew Dipela said on Thursday that the decision to clear referee Petros Mathabela of any wrongdoing in officiating a league match was taken by a sub-committee of Safa and not the Motsimele Commission as was reported on Wednesday. “The Safa committee was acting on the […]