ROB DAVIES, Johannesburg | Saturday 7.30pm. THE South African rugby side on Saturday came close to an embarrassing defeat when they beat an incredibly spirited Welsh side 28-20 at Wembley Stadium in London. The Springboks looked completely out of depth against the full-strength Welsh side, drilled to perfection by former Auckland Blues coach Graham Henry. […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Sunday 12.30pm. KAIZER Chiefs reached the the final of the Rothmans Cup soccer championships, despite losing 1-0 to Orlando Pirates in the second leg semifinal at the FNB Stadium in Johannesburg on Saturday. Chiefs carried a valuable two goal cushion from their 3-1 win in the first leg into Saturday’s match, […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Friday 5.00pm. FRANCE and South Africa signed on Thursday two agreements to expand their relations, notably with joint ventures and financial aid. One agreement calls for the appointment of a French expert charged with determining the best options for joint ventures and facilitating their establishment. Sectors deemed best suited for such […]

Mercedes Sayagues `I sing the body electric,” wrote Walt Whitman. I am reminded of this line as I watch the bulging biceps, palpitating pecs and throbbing quads of Vaughan Carl, Mr Zimbabwe Bodybuilder 1998. Harare’s 700-seat Seven Arts theatre is half-full for the finals of Mr and Ms Zimbabwe Bodybuilder. Mr Zimbabwe 1996 is the […]

Review of the week : Brenda Atkinson Roger van Wyk, all Capetonian cool and soft round vowels and mad professor hair, has had two espressos, and he’s on a roll, his lucid rapid-fire monologue dragging my morning brain into foreign terrain. In Van Wyk’s world, the world of Transmission – his show at the Rembrandt […]

CD of the week : Caroline Sullivan Supposedly, PJ(Polly Jean) Harvey doesn’t have a phone in her Dorset house. But it takes a singular talent to come up with gems like her last album, 1995’s To Bring You My Love, and for Harvey reclusiveness seems to spark the creative process. It’s worked again on Is […]

Ann Eveleth : In the Act Civilian victims of the latest series of conflicts afflicting Southern Africa will welcome the news that South Africa’s first- ever Refugees Bill is rapidly traversing the corridors of power. More than three decades after anti-colonial and civil wars first engulfed the region – creating large numbers of refugees – […]

Howard Barrell Armed rebels are making skilful use of rainy season in the jungles of the Democratic Republic of Congo to push back President Laurent Kabila’s army and allied Angolan, Namibian and Zimbabwean forces, say intelligence sources and security analysts. The rebels, familiar with local conditions, have been pressing forward mainly on foot in the […]

Jim White : A Second Look Brian Lara is renowned in cricket as an active disciple of the Geoffrey Boycott school: nothing matters as much as himself, or rather his bank balance. Yet in an affair which initially seemed little more than another piece of financial brinkmanship by the world’s most gifted batsman, it is […]

Mail & Guardian reporter The Human Rights Commission (HRC) has thrown out a complaint of subliminal racism laid against the Mail & Guardian and Sunday Times newspapers by the Association of Black Accountants and the Black Lawyers Association. The request for an investigation was turned down “because the issue of racism in the media is […]