Stephen Bierley Tennis The last thing Anna Kournikova, the Madonna of the world’s tennis courts, ever seemed likely to suffer from was a crisis of confidence. The 17-year-old Muscovite, who when not on the road lives most of her high- dollar life in the sunshine state of Florida, has been the epitome of audacity and […]

THE second round of voter registration kicked off around the country at 9am on Friday, despite this week’s resignation of Independent Electoral Commission chief Judge Johann Kriegler. Registration will continue on Saturday and through Sunday. Only about a third of potential voters registered in the first round at the end of November. If insufficient voters […]

David Shapshak A ground-breaking new antibiotic has been discovered by a team of scientists based in Knysna, the latest in a series of innovative South African medical discoveries from natural sources. The potentially powerful broad-spectrum antibiotic is a molecule extracted from a South African plant species, says Greg Gilbert, a chemist who directs the scientific […]

Wally Mbhele Embattled Mpumalanga Premier Mathews Phosa is set to be discharged of his duties next month as premier and African National Congress provincial chair when the party meets to finalise its list of parliamentary candidates. The ANC committee investigating the causes of infighting among ANC heavyweights in Mpumalanga – which is scheduled to complete […]

Zimbabwe has joined the grim club of police states, writes Mercedes Sayagues Zimbabwe’s government is showing its true colours, and the hue is the olive green of a military dictatorship. In the past two weeks, basic democratic principles have been crudely disregarded: the military declared itself above the law and institutional torture reared its ugly […]

Impinging, as it does, on the font of the new South Africa, the row between Judge Johann Kriegler and the government over the organisation of the next general election is obviously a matter of major concern to the country. But we cannot help but fear that it is symptomatic of an even wider and more […]

Tangeni Amupadhi A policeman is to testify against three colleagues accused of beating “People’s Poet” Mzwakhe Mbuli last week. Sergeant Maraka Lesika said he saw three other policemen assault Mbuli, but he refused to give details of what he witnessed. Mbuli laid charges of assault and crimen injuria at the Lyttelton police station in Pretoria […]

NIGERIA’S former finance minister Olu Falae huddled with advisers on Thursday after he became the first official candidate for the Nigerian presidency and the flagbearer of the south-west based Alliance for Democracy (AD). The radical leftist AD is one of three parties running in the polls, alongside the rightwing All Peoples Party and centre-left Peoples […]

DENIS BARNETT, Richmond | Thursday 5.30pm. ARMY and police were deployed in force on Thursday as the United Democratic Movement held a memorial service for its assassinated leader Sifiso Nkabinde. The Methodist service, held at a school 400 metres from Nkabinde’s home in his Magoda township stronghold near the KwaZulu-Natal town of Richmond, heard angry […]

Germaine Greer:SITE SEEING I’m not impressed with the general availability of books online. I’m glad a United Kingdom edition of Amazon’s online bookshop was launched because it was infuriating not being able to buy books from UK distributors on the United States site. But I find this site slow. Virtually all its titles are available […]