Media

In 1939 a tall, shy Zulu migrant worker named Solomon Linda stepped up to the microphone and produced Mbube, a song that echoed around the world, becoming Pete Seeger's Wimoweh and the international classic The Lion Sleeps Tonight. Linda was paid a total of 10 shillings for the song, which went on to make US$15-million for others.

South Africa's courtrooms are set to go the hi-tech route, with the accused taking part in proceedings from prison via video-conferencing facilities, in a system successfully pioneered at the Durban and Pinetown magistrate's courts in KwaZulu-Natal.

Fifty One Years, a retrospective of David Goldblatt's photography, includes more than 250 photographs taken between 1948 to 2002, documenting the changes South Africa has undergone.

The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa has granted the SABC, the country's public broadcaster, licences for two regional television stations to be broadcast in indigenous languages.

Oprah Winfrey says South Africans have more spirit and hope than any other people she has met. Speaking at a recent seminar in Johannesburg, she also revealed that she's crazy about the South African accent, loves food from Spur and Nando's - and has Zulu DNA.

Design Indaba 8 will be a gallery, a marketplace, a school and a theatre of the finest original South African design, covering everything from homeware and jewellery to architecture, fashion, film, multimedia and graphic design.

In a career spanning 40 years they've entertained audiences across the globe, sold over six million albums, performed for the likes of Nelson Mandela and the Queen of England, and collaborated with some of the biggest names in music. Now traditional Zulu musicians Ladysmith Black Mambazo have added a second Grammy award to their collection.

The curtain may have come down on the Cape Town World Cinema Festival, but something in the local movie landscape changed noticeably in 2004. World Cinema made a small but significant dent in Hollywood's hegemony - and a string of new South African films were strongly to the fore.

South Africa's film industry has received a major fillip from the government, which is offering some $40-million in tax incentives to local and foreign film companies over the next three years.

Darrell Roodt's "Yesterday", the first ever feature-length film in isiZulu, took its story of an HIV-positive mother deserted by her husband to the Venice and Toronto international film festivals this month - and triumphed at both venues.