Joan Smith : First Person Why don’t women go cruising? When the media is full of the shortage of single men, why is this method of finding partners, briefly at least, unthinkable for women? The simple answer is danger. It is unthinkable for lesbians and straight women alike because we are so accustomed to recognising […]

David Shapshak All I wanted to do was type up a few stories. With the dauntingly boring prospect of an 11 hour flight – leaving at 2pm, the best time of day to do some work – and not having finished the work before I left, it seemed like the perfect time to complete the […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Friday 11.50pm. THE Transvaal attorney-general’s office is currently investigating possible tampering with evidence from the plane crash that killed Mozambican president Samora Machel by former security police chief General Krappies Engelbrecht. The investigation could lead to a prosecution. Engelbrecht is one of several apartheid-era generals being scrutinised by the special investigation […]

Ferial Haffajee Zwelinzima Vavi is the man who will step into Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) general secretary Mbhazima Shilowa’s red socks next year. Shilowa, Cosatu president John Gomomo and vice-president Connie September are likely to join a labour throng to Parliament. Vavi, who currently serves as Cosatu’s assistant general secretary, is redder […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, London | Thursday 4.45pm. SOUTH African centre Andre Snyman says the world champions are being cheated by referees and has slammed the way they are being treated by rugby officials. The 25-times capped centre, in Britain with the rest of the touring South African squad, said: “We feel penalised more than any other […]

Angella Johnson : VIEW FROM A BROAD Sophia Jardim was trawling the aisles of her local supermarket, one of her “children” precariously balanced on her hip, when a woman approached and lobbed a gob of spit at her. It was just another in a string of unpleasant attacks this 43-year-old divorcee has had to endure […]

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 […]

Links to Executive Outcomes may have made an Angolan mining company a target for attack, writes Chris Gordon DiamondWorks, whose Yetwene mine in north- eastern Angola was attacked last week, may have been a target because of the links of its parent company, British-based Branch Energy, to the South African mercenary company, Executive Outcomes. Branch […]

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 […]

Denise Rack Louw `Seeing how the violence around us has affected the lives of the youth I work with is what motivated me to write this show,” says dramatist and director Jerry Pooe of his musical, Peace in the Valley, currently enjoying a run at Durban’s Bat Centre. Singer, guitarist and actress Tu Nokwe composed […]