Staff Reporter

Adam Sweeting RECORDING a James Bond theme demands more dignified attributes than mere pop stardom, as Duran Duran demonstrated with A View to a Kill — stupid title, pathetic song, crap movie. Even wily pop veteran Paul McCartney found it difficult to shake and stir the perfect Bond cocktail, and his Live and Let Die […]

Rehana Rossouw BRIAN is a Cape Town engineer now attending counselling sessions, who said he physically and sexually abused his wife because he wanted to control her and because he could. His wife Lynne, the owner of a successful restaurant in Cape Town, tried to leave him at least 18 times during their six-year marriage […]

THEATRE: David Le Page IN February 1956, in the foothills of the Drakensberg near Bergville, a group of Zulu dagga farmers took severe umbrage when the South African Police attempted a raid on their crop. It was, after all, not only a traditional indulgence, but their livelihood. At first the police retreated, but it was […]

A game between Austria and South Africa team showed that being in a wheelchair doesn’t limit the skill and excitement BASKETBALL:Julian Drew WHEN I set out last Friday evening to watch my first ever wheelchair basketball game I must admit I was a little doubtful about how much excitement there could be in such a […]

EARLIER this week General Magnus Malan gave a briefing to the Foreign Correspondents Association, devoted to his forthcoming trial on murder charges. He did so in defiance of advice from his lawyers who, he related, were concerned that he might be in breach of the sub judice rule. Rare as it is for this newspaper […]

Visitors to the Western Cape may be on the increase but is it equipped to cope with the rush? asks Lynda Loxton THE Western Cape tourism sector has finally taken off — and run straight into a wall of infrastructural bottlenecks because of low investment that could be its undoing. This was the warning from […]

Justin Pearce THERE’S music floating over the boxy, red- brick buildings of the University of the North: the creamy sounds of Kenny G’s saxophone. The music is issuing from a loudspeaker on the wall of the student centre, the home of Radio Turf. Inside the studio, science student Thapelo Sehume is behind the microphone, chatting […]

They’ve had a long, hard season and several key members of their squad are weary after representing the national team, but Orlando Pirates can rise to the occasion against Ivory Coast’s Asec Mimosa SOCCER:Lungile Madywabe DESPITE the national team’s recent triumph in the Four Nations tournament, there is still a belief that South African football […]

Wits University groups have rejected the tribunal set up to investigate the allegations against Makgoba, reports Philippa THE stage is set for further conflict at Wits University around the inquiry into deputy vice- chancellor Malegapuru Makgoba. The Wits Transformation Front (WTF) and Academic Staff Association have rejected the manner in which the tribunal — which […]

CLASSICAL MUSIC: Coenraad Visser TWO outstanding soloists and an orchestra still inspired by Gerard Korsten’s recent visit marked the first two concerts conducted by Vladimir Simkine, the Russian conductor currently on the podium in front of the National Symphony First Tasmin Little gave a breathtakingly lyrical account of Beethoven’s violin concerto. Her articulation was always […]

Barbie dolls and plastic telephones vied with live goldfish in last weekend’s Smirnoff International Fashion Awards. But, in the end, it was the cows’ stomachs that walked off with the prize, reports MALU VAN LEEUWEN ‘IMAGINE your mind is shut away from the real world, you are living in darkness, completely detached. Then, suddenly, the […]

Justin Pearce INSURANCE brokers in Johannesburg are advising clients that drivers of luxury cars such as BMWs run the most serious risk of being hijacked. BMW South Africa has in turn accused the insurance industry of giving customers inaccurate information about car hijackings and has called on the police to reveal the truth about which […]

CINEMA: Andrew Worsdale AVI LERNER and Trevor Short – two producers who made junk over here in the heady days of tax- breaks and Hollyveld – have now teamed up with Martin Scorsese to produce an art movie. They claim it’s part of their plan to diversify their product from the usual Cyborg Cop I, […]

With lucrative contracts on offer, the temptation is great for Springbok players to switch to rugby league, especially those who weren’t in the World Cup squad RUGBY:Jon Swift THE Jacques Olivier affair has had the effect of making the mantle of world champions start to fray at the edges. In the wake of the 24-14 […]

There were good and bad performances from both sides in the first Test in Pretoria and only the weather showed consistent form CRICKET: Jon Swift IT IS HARD to formulate any real opinion of the current series against England when one side has not batted and the other not bowled. Even more so when those […]

WHAT happens when Mandela goes? The concern underlying the question becomes even more acute when one considers his performance over the last week. As the president’s stature continues to grow, so does the likely vacuum when he finally and voluntarily bows out of the political arena. Mandela is deserving only of praise for the way […]

South African abolitionists just found an unlikely ally, reports David Beresford OPPONENTS of capital punishment have found a powerful new ally: the country’s police chief, George Fivaz, who has seen the light … not on the road to Damascus, but in Denmark. The possibility that capital punishment – outlawed by the Constitutional Court – will […]

Bill Gates has committed his vision of the future to paper and it will appear in shops around the world today. Bruce Cohen takes a look at Gates’ roadmap to the information LET me state my heresy upfront: I like Bill Gates. I think the founder and chairman of Microsoft is a pretty smart guy. […]

A key witness, who could provide explosive evidence in the trial of General Magnus Malan and other officers, is under protection overseas SEVERAL men, including at least one white former officer, are overseas on a witness protection programme and will be key players in the murder trial of General Magnus Malan and his co- According […]

CINEMA: Andrew Worsdale DAVID FINCHER’S Seven takes place in a drenched, sleazy metropolis, not unlike New York, where there’s a deadly sin on every corner. Plumbing untold depths of atmosphere, he creates a fairly routine buddy cops-meet-serial killer movie with an intelligence and craft that make the result genuinely disturbing. Brad Pitt is Detective David […]

Can the IBA afford the parliamentary delay in reappointing councillors when it has such a heavy work load? asks Neil Bierbaum Delays in the reappointment of Independent Broadcasting Authority councillors has again come under fire, with industry players accusing Parliament of neglect – if not deliberate delays. The IBA has been reported as saying that […]

WINNNIE MANDELA will appear in the Witwatersrand Supreme Court today after yesterday’s postponement of her application for leave to appeal against the judgment in the diamonds from Angola, Foster Webb air charter case. The case was postponed because Modise Khoza, the advocate defending Mandela in this case, was in Durban. Mandela is applying for leave […]

The IFP has renewed its battle cries over the alleged assassination of about 400 party leaders. Ann Eveleth investigates the claims INKATHA FREEDOM PARTY leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi wept last Saturday as he read the political eulogy for the Wembezi funeral of the three Dladla brothers. Gunned down almost three weeks ago on the way to […]

Dedicated to providing the people of Alexandra with hard-hitting local news, ALX.FM is proving that interactive radio is what people want. Itumeleng oa Mahabane reports RAP star and erstwhile self-proclaimed hip-hop thugster Tupac Shakur hangs placidly from a wall in the studio booth at ALX.FM. The poster carries the title of his latest album, Me […]

THEATRE: David Le Page MARABI is a musical story of the Doornfontein slumyards of early Johannesburg, and of the musical culture that sprang up from that misery. If anything, this Junction Avenue Theatre Company production at the Market Theatre celebrates marabi culture more than the music The play focuses on the lives of the Mabongo […]

Luanda’s market grew from a rubbish tip to an open-air shopper’s mecca that offers a glimmer of hope for Angola, writes Phillip van Niekerk LUANDA’S market began on the edge of the city’s rubbish tip, in the shade of a baobab tree, in the late Seventies, as a blackmarket for United States dollars and scarce […]

David Beresford THE most powerful indictment of the death penalty ever produced in South Africa is arguably Alan Paton’s Cry the Beloved Country. But the man who plays the central role in the latest screen version of the novel has made a passionate appeal to Nelson Mandela: Hang them high! Eric “Waku” Miyeni, the comedian, […]

Ann Eveleth FINANCIAL irregularities of R6.7-million were unearthed by the KwaZulu-Natal auditor general during a check on the former KwaZulu government’s 1992/93 budget, the provincial Public Accounts Committee (PAC) heard this week. Accounts chairman NP MP Tino Volker said Auditor General Chris Foster reported “43 cases of theft and irregularities involving motor vehicles and cash […]

Rehana Rossouw PW BOTHA could face two years behind bars if he remains opposed to testifying before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission after it begins its work next year. His defiant refusal this week to “repent” before the commission could see him falling foul of the law. The Promotion of National Unity and Reconciliation Act […]

BALLET: Stanley Peskin MORE than a century after The Nutcracker was first conceived for the Maryinsky Theatre at St Petersburg as part of the Christmas festivities in 1892, it continues to hold the stage. Andr Prokovsky’s production for Pact Ballet takes its impetus not only from Lev Ivanov, the ballet’s original choreographer, but also from […]

Some of the irrational responses to crime could damage our new Bill of Rights, argues Etienne Mureinik MANY South Africans now live in dread of violent crime, and it is not just the awful number of daily victims that haunts them. It is also the gratuitousness with which petty thieves casually kill and cripple their […]

FORMER Witwatersrand attorney-general Klaus von Lieres und Wilkau, who says he retired because of ill-health earlier this year, is back in harness. He has been retained by a firm of attorneys in Alberton to appear for former KwaZulu policemen who are among the accused in the KwaMakutha trial and will make an appearance in the […]