Howard Barrell The Democratic Party has thrown its weight behind one of its MPs, Richard Pillay, who has been denied security clearance to serve on Parliament’s watchdog committee on intelligence, calling his exclusion unjustified and malicious. Pillay is a former member of the African National Congress who alleges he was tortured by ANC security personnel […]

SOUTH African star cricketer Barry Richards has been shorlisted to coach the Pakistan national cricket side, a senior Pakistan Cricket Board official said on Thursday. “We have decided to talk to either England’s former test player Geoffrey Boycott or South African Barry Richards in the next couple of days,” PCB manager operations Yawar Saeed said. […]

Andy Capostagno RUGBY There are still some dinosaurs who will tell you that the game of rugby union should have nothing to do with show business, most of whom probably thoroughly enjoyed England’s try-less 15- 9 win over France in last week’s Six Nations. Such relics of a former amateur regime will be appalled by […]

>From songs to sermons, these new South African poems represent some remarkablework Dan Wylie Some years ago, when I reviewed Adam Schwartzman’s The Good Life, The Dirty Life, I thought that here was a poet to watch out for. Schwartzman’s new (1998, just received!) collection, Merrie Afrika! (Carcanet) doesn’t disappoint, though it’s not a pacific […]

Deon Potgieter BOXING When Musibulele “Hawk” Makepula was awarded the World Boxing Organisation (WBO) junior flyweight world title on Saturday night it was not a controversial decision, but a bad one. Although the likeable Makepula has the potential of developing into a bona fide superstar, he still has much to learn. Watching the bout at […]

For the third year in a row, Trevor Manuel has produced a largely acclaimed budget. What does it mean for individual South Africans? Belinda Beresford The big news of the budget was the restructuring of personal income taxes, and the consequent slashed tax bill for most taxpayers. More measures to encourage savings might have been […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Abuja | Friday 3.35pm NIGERIAN President Olusegun Obasanjo has spoken out for the first time against legal implementation of Sharia, stating that punishments meted out under the Islamic law violates the constitution. “For any law to be, it must be codified. Sharia is not codified. They just make references to the Koran and […]

Charles Mangwiro and Justin Arenstein The Mozambican government appears to own 20% of the plastic pipe factory outside Maputo where police last week pulled off Africa’s largest ever Mandrax bust. The raid by a squad of South African and Mozambican police netted over 300kg of methaqualone power meant for the manufacture of at least 30-million […]

New tax concessions to non-profit organisations are close to tax deductibility for all donations Barry Streek The non-profit sector achieved a significant – although still incomplete – victory in this year’s budget with the announcement of tax concessions to non- profit organisations by Minister of Finance Trevor Manuel in his budget speech. His announcement stopped […]

The imprint of apartheid is clearly evident in staff composition at universities and technikons across South Africa Barry Streek The academic staff at South Africa’s 36 public universities and technikons are still overwhelmingly white and male dominated, particularly at the historically white institutions, according to the Council for Higher Education. The council has found 80% […]