Neil Manthorp in Amsterdam In time South Africa’s cricketers may reflect on the decision taken three weeks ago not to read any newspapers in England as one of the better ones during the World Cup campaign. Despite performances so compelling that not even English journalists could be disparaging, their coverage remains steadfastly tinged. The prevalent […]

Robert Kitson Rugby England have a new captain, whatever the result of the Rugby Football Union’s (RFU) inquiry into allegations that Lawrence Dallaglio took and supplied illegal drugs may be. Martin Johnson, the captain of British club side Leicester, will lead his country on the forthcoming tour of Australia and the subsequent World Cup with […]

Nobody will ever mistake Manchester United for anything other than the product of Alex Ferguson’s irresistible will. The team who, on Wednesday, attempted to return the championship of Europe to Old Trafford after an absence of 31 years are so identifiably Ferguson’s that the mark he has put on them might have been made with […]

movies Emir Kustirica talks to Fiachra Gibbons about politics, his art – and the war When he’s not brawling on the streets of Belgrade with men who make Arkan look like Mary Poppins, challenging people to duels, or playing in Serbian rock bands, Emir Kusturica is winning the Palme D’Or at Cannes. No other director […]

Andrew Worsdale Movie of the week I remember taking my first cap of LSD (it was only a quarter) in 1982 when I saw Steven Lisberger’s Tron, which had Jeff Bridges as a computer programmer caught up in a game. The drugs and, for that time, dazzling special effects seemed to cancel everything out. I […]

Aaron Nicodemus A Joubert Park clinic nearly killed a pregnant woman last week during an illegal abortion. The abortion was performed on a 32-year-old Soweto woman who was seven- and-a-half-months pregnant, nearly four months past the legal limit. The woman was sent in a metered taxi from the Hillcrest Family Planning Clinic on May 13 […]

Evidence wa ka Ngobeni An attempt to broker peace between two notorious Western Cape gangs by taking them to the mountains was sabotaged a week before it could start. The National Peace Accord Trust had arranged to take the rival gangster groups on a “transformation trail” in the Drakensberg in KwaZulu-Natal last week. The aim […]

Cameron Duodu Letter from the North The furore in South Africa over the right of the editor of the Financial Mail, Peter Bruce, to determine what political party the paper should support in the forthcoming election will amaze readers from the north. You see, we are not at all used to freedom of the press. […]

We talk of “subcultures” in a positive tone, expressing the potential of a kaleidoscope multi-culture to be vibrant and stimulating rather than its danger to come apart at the seams of its component parts. Difference does not equal opposition, and there’s a place in the sun for everyone. An intriguing visual microcosm of the complex […]