Andrew Muchineripi SOCCER The World Cup inspection team came, saw and were very impressed. Sundowns and Orlando Pirates served up a six-goal feast, and the Amaglug-glug once again captured the hearts of the nation with a thrilling win over Ghana. All is well within the South African soccer kingdom, and there is a real chance […]
Howard Barrell OVERABARREL ‘Louis le Grange has approached a senior Argus executive, Howard, and demanded that the company’s newspapers no longer use your copy on the exiles.” It was about 1983, and Gerry L’Ange, my editor at the Argus Africa News Service was in Harare, where I was based, telling me of another threat against […]
Marianne Merten After South Africa’s 2006 World Cup bid received the thumbs-up from the Federation of International Football Associations (Fifa) this week, officials now face a gruelling 16 weeks in the politics of international lobbying to bring the global soccer event to Africa. Crucial to strengthening South Africa’s chances is next week’s discussions with Brazilian […]
Shaun de Waal The M-Net Book Prize celebrates the 10th year of its existence this year. It has supplanted the CNAPrize, once South Africa’s leading literary award, in English at least (the Herzog Prize led the Afrikaans field), until it was discontinued by its sponsors. There was talk of its being revived in a new […]
Matthew Krouse Anyone who was around in the Sixties couldn’t possibly forget the local variety stage show called Wait a Minim that played to packed houses at Johannesburg’s Intimate theatre before touring abroad. It kick- started a trend of self-serving pathos in indigenous white humour. One would be hard-pressed to find a South African over […]
There is doubt about who really occupies supposed war graves at Brandfort in the Free State Stefaans Brmmer Leon de Beer, a former MP who was jailed for cheating his way to Parliament, has emerged as a central figure in a controversy undermining three years of planned Anglo-Boer South African War commemorations. The centenary commemorations […]
South African National Parks denies plans to cull elephants despite documented evidence to the contrary Fiona Macleod South African National Parks (SANP) and the Ministry of Environmental Affairs and Tourism this week vociferously denied plans to resume culling elephants in the Kruger National Park, despite documentary evidence that the park proposes to cull between 400 […]
Stefaans Brmmer and Inigo Gilmore South Africa’s failure to come clean on a massacre pulled off by its paratroopers 18 months ago in Lesotho is bedevilling relations between Pretoria and the mountain kingdom’s popular royal family. Little is known about the skirmish at Katse Dam where 17 Lesotho and two South African soldiers died. Paratroopers […]
Statements questioning the cause of Aids have caused dismay among local and international scientists Khadija Magardie and David Le Page Leading international Aids scientists and researchers this week unanimously dismissed the South African government’s suggestion that the link between HIV and Aids be “re- examined”. Head of the Medical Research Council Professor Malegapuru Makgoba also […]
Paul Kirk In the week that KwaZulu-Natal Premier Lionel Mtshali created a new department to regulate expenditure on the royal family, the province’s auditor general released extraordinary new details about the Zulu king’s high-flying lifestyle. In a report tabled in the provincial legislature, Auditor General Barry Wheeler records how the taxpayer footed the bill for […]