MONDAY, 11.00AM: PETRUS PADI narrowly beat George Mbatha by a unanimous judges points decision in their catchweight fight at Orange Farm on Saturday. The judges awarded Padi two more points on average than his opponent, in a closely contested game. Mbatha’s disappointed manager, Jeff Ellis, said it was only through Padi’s suberb fitness that he […]
MONDAY, 8.30AM BUSINESS leaders have come to an agreement with Johannesburg’s city council that closed circuit television cameras will be installed on streets throughout the central business district by the end of the year. Central Johannesburg partnership director Neil Frazer announced that a team had visited Britian to study the impact of such cameras, and […]
MONDAY, 3.00PM: SOUTH African Charl Mathus has won the 1997 Comrades Marathon. This year’s race was run downhill from Pietermaritzburg to Durban, and Matheus narrowly missed breaking Bruce Fordyce’s down record time. First Woman home was American favourite Ann Trason, who won last year’s women’s race. The victory was a special one for Matheus, who […]
MONDAY, 8.30AM HEAVY fighting has resumed in Congo-Brazzaville, as French troops prepared to leave after evacuating some 5 500 foreigners, including a number of South Africans. Although a ceasefire had been brokered on Wednesday by the French, fighting broke out again on the weekend in the region around the airport. Some three thousand people, mainly […]
MONDAY, 1.00PM ZIMBABWE has threatened to sell off ivory stockpiles in contravention of the ban on trade in elephant products if the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species votes against its proposal to legalise ivory sales. Environment minister Chen Chimutengwende was quoted in the Herald newspaper at the weekend as saying that Cites ”will […]
Sarah Boseley in London PRE-MENSTRUAL syndrome (PMS), often blamed for turning women into murderers and arsonists, is all in the mind, according to new research from Australia. Psychologists monitored women who said they had PMS, together with two control groups – women who did not claim to suffer and men. They found all three groups […]
JULIE BARKER enjoyed the vibrance and variety of the performers at the FNB Vita Community Theatre Festival THIS year saw the seventh FNB Vita Market Theatre Lab Community Theatre Festival bursting at the seams. At the opening ceremony, the FNB general manager of group communications said that the pursuit and promotion of excellence within the […]
Why do Pedi men wear Scottish kilts in their traditional dress? MARIAMcCLOY listens to some tall stories THE Lesedi Cultural Village in the Magaliesberg offers an expensive and contrived African experience. Visitors can “sing, dance and taste traditional Africa”. This includes them getting to see a group of Pedi, Zulu, Mosotho and Xhosa. They can […]
Robin McKie in London SCIENTISTS are developing the ultimate in designer genes: genetically engineered plants that produce naturally blue cotton. The aim is to make denims that can be manufactured without dyeing. The blue-gene project, created by United States chemical giant Monsanto, reveals the flourishing power of crop geneticists. Last year, this resulted in a […]
Shaun de Waal BORN IN THE RSA: FOUR WORKSHOPPED PLAYS by Barney Simon (Witwatersrand University Press, R39,95) LIKE Joan Littlewood, with whom he worked, and Athol Fugard, to whom he was close, Barney Simon made theatre out of a process of bringing real life as directly as possible to the stage. Simon’s actor-collaborators would be […]