Sixty years ago this week, Walter Hammond’s Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) side in South Africa disembarked from the Durban night train at Cape Town and made haste to the waiting ship, Athlone Castle, for the voyage home. The day before, March 14, the Timeless Test, unparalleled in cricket history, had been abandoned as a draw […]

Niki Barker The KwaZulu-Natal marine environment is being plundered by unscrupulous fishing fleet owners who are taking advantage of the government’s inability to adequately regulate fishing operations off the coast. A recent shipping disaster in northern KwaZulu-Natal has revealed the lack of control of the lucrative prawn-fishing industry by the Department of Sea Fisheries. Prawn […]

The head of the TRC hopes to hold on to his post, despite his recent appointment as rector of the University of the North, writes Ann Eveleth Truth and Reconciliation Commission CEO Biki Minyuku is bidding to keep his current post after he takes on new responsibilities – and a R1-million salary package – as […]

Bafana Khumalo Sergeant Sibusiso Gwala left his army base at Thabatshwane in Pretoria in August 1997 to rush to KwaZulu-Natal when he heard his father, African National Congress leader Harry Gwala, had died. “This was a blood relative and it was important for me to be there,” he explained this week, expressing bitterness that attending […]

Sharon Hammond The Kruger National Park’s new management plan has been approved, paving the way for four-wheel drive routes and a reintroduction of elephant culling. General manager for conservation development Dr Leo Braack says that the new plan took three years to devise and had the approval of many conservationists, including groups traditionally opposed to […]

Matthew Krouse : Down the tube You don’t have to be as deep as Mike Lipkin to know that people spend a lot of their weekends in bed, in front of the television – particularly the early mornings, when those with kids probably get the worst end of a cute, co-parenting romp. If you have […]

all Africans John Matshikiza : WITH THE LID OFF The taxi driver is from Yugoslavia. He rails against the politicians and religious orthodoxies that have torn his country apart, but says he is now quite happy in South Africa. He drops me at the airport and wishes me a pleasant flight. My ticket says Air […]

The education ministry has requested forensic audits into the financial affairs of six black universities, writes Evidence wa ka Ngobeni With black universities on the brink of collapse, the Ministry of Education has said that criminal charges will be laid against university managers if they are found to have abused taxpayers’ money. This follows Minister […]

Ann Eveleth Human rights education will receive a multilingual boost this week with the launch of the Know Your Rights comic book for schoolchildren in all 11 official languages – just in time for Human Rights Day celebrations on Monday. The Rapid Phase Group, makers of the Madame & Eve cartoon and writers of the […]

Gary Younge : BODY LANGUAGE Not for the first time the spirit of the United States Declaration of Independence and the rule of the American Constitution are at loggerheads. The founding fathers said everyone had the right to the “pursuit of happiness”. Now the state of Alabama has told women they have no “fundamental, constitutional […]