John Hooper in Berlin The former head of East Germany’s Olympic programme went on trial this week in what will be an unprecedented public examination of the project to produce super women athletes by feeding them steroids without their knowledge. Opening the trial of Manfred Ewald, once head of the Gymnastics and Sports Federation, the […]

world Mercedes Sayagues President Robert Gabriel Mugabe this week articulated his vision of Zimbabwe in the new millennium: one redolent with the stale air of Albania under the paranoid Enver Hoxha, the Stalinist who led his country into extreme isolation and penury during the Cold War – a country cut off from the rest of […]

Angry residents in the Northern Province are threatening to take action over delays in land claim settlements, reports Jaspreet Kindra Land claimants in the Northern Province are threatening to boycott the local government elections, and have joined other claimants across the country in threatening “Zimbabwe-style” invasions. The disgruntled claimants have found an unlikely ally in […]

Merle Colborne LIFESTYLE The Friday-night crowd at the Flagons and Dragons pub in Durban’s Windermere Road have “lived-in” faces or, at least, faces that have been “stayed over in” a good few times. Loosened by lyrics and beer, the men hug a lot and stare damply into each other’s eyes. The women smile, the way […]

Glenda Daniels and Barry Streek The African National Congress and the government tied themselves up in knots this week, trying to reconcile ANC secretary general Kgalema Motlanthe’s call for a war against capitalism with the country’s investor-friendly macroeconomic policies. At a Workers’ Day rally, Motlanthe commended the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) for […]

Two top British poets are among those coming to Durban’s poetry festival Merle Colborne There was a time when poetry was thought of as something only people who spoke posh, wore tweed skirts or jackets with leather elbow patches and drank their tea from bone china cups could enjoy. Now aficionados include those who talk […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Bulawayo | Friday 1.30pm. PRESIDENT Thabo Mbeki and Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe greeted each other with bear hugs in Bulawayo on Friday ahead of the Zimbabwe International Trade Fair. The two leaders walked hand-in-hand along a red carpet and waved to a crowd of about 200 of Mugabe’s supporters before being whisked off […]

Andrew Muchineripi SOCCER It never ceases to amaze me how much hot air is exhaled by Premier Soccer League coaches on the issue of fixture congestion without their offering even one constructive suggestion as to how the problem can be solved. Paul Dolezar says Sundowns face a 13- month season and the reaction of this […]

Cameron Duodu LETTER FROM THE NORTH In 1992 I was in Abuja, Nigeria, to cover former president FW de Klerk’s first official visit to Nigeria. As I sat down to face De Klerk and his officials at the news conference, I wondered whether they fully realised the historic importance of the visit. Nigeria had played […]

M&G reporters The London and Frankfurt stock exchanges have agreed to merge, creating Europe’s largest stock market and a powerful regional counterweight to Wall Street, the London Stock Exchange announced this week. The London exchange and Germany’s Deutsche Boerse would each own 50% of the new entity, which is to be called iX, for International […]