We’ve got the shocking stories to make a mother lode of cop dramas, Charl Blignaut discovered at a recent TV scriptwriting workshop It’s his third day in town and David Simons is still trying to get a handle on the newspaper headlines. “I look at your papers and see your crime stories …” says the […]

Women’s boxing is big business in the United States, and Michelle Carson is looking for a piece of the action Gavin Foster Former South African kick-boxing champion Michelle Carson is the first South African woman to hold a professional boxing licence, and once the sport’s been legalised – probably at the end of this month […]

The artist commissioned to create a sculpture of Gandhi hopes her statue will inspire all South Africans Anthea Garman Maria Smith Williams, the African-American sculptor who is to do a life-size bronze of Gandhi for the Durban parks department, was attracted to the project because the sculpture had to be of Mohandas Gandhi in his […]

Guilt by association chases the world’s fastest woman Duncan Mackay He is a big man and she a slender woman but somehow he always got lost in her shadow. CJ Hunter is the world shot put champion but most know him as the husband of Marion Jones. At the Olympics it was an association that […]

Exit management is the government’s latest proposal to reduce the size of the public service.

Andrew McUtchen She’s Benin’s only, and therefore, most successful afro-funk diva ever, an enthusiastic disciple of the Voodoo religion, and she’s not half determined to re-write the lyrics to James Brown’s evergreen soul classic It’s a Man’s World. Why? “Because it’s not. Men pretend to rule the world, but we do”. Meet the co-headline act […]

Economist Ian Palmer looks at which countries actually did best at the Olympics – adjusting for size and wealth While the performance of the United States and others at the top of the Olympics medals table looks impressive, the US clearly has two major advantages: it is a big and rich country. If adjustments are […]

African Frontiers is a new Mail & Guardian series highlighting science and technology in Africa. We’ll celebrate the talents of African pioneers across a multitude of disciplines, and attempt to capture the joy of discovery as much as the challenge of resolving practical problems on our continent Belinda Beresford african frontiers When all around them […]

The new chief executive is an ordained minister with strong struggle credentials and a passion for the game Merryman Kunene For an organisation founded on the principle of maximising the value of top soccer in South Africa, the Premier Soccer League (PSL) will be pleased with its progress judging by the kind of sponsorship value […]

Simon Kuper For reasons too complex to explain, I have just spent a few weeks in Ghana. It proved an excellent place to watch two other West African countries, Cameroon and Nigeria, reach the quarterfinals of the Olympic tournament, with Cameroon going on to win the event on a penalty shoot-out against Spain. Most Ghanaians […]