Michel Bajuk X-ray vision and wireless Internet access may soon turn ordinary reporters to real- life Clark Kents. Hi-tech sunglasses with groovy features will also provide future super-reporters with vast database access, extraordinary communications capabilities and advanced analytical tools. All this voice-controlled with a user-friendly interface. Science fiction? No. It may seem to be inspired […]

Andy Capostagno Rugby Times have changed. In 1995 the newly crowned world champion Springboks played Wales at Ellis Park. You may remember the game. Gary Teichmann, unluckily overlooked for the World Cup, made his debut at eighth man and scored a try. Robbie Kempson, a young and promising prop forward from Natal, sat on the […]

Mark Tran in New York Basketball He is sport’s first $10-billion man. Michael Jordan, the basketball player, has not only built a vast personal fortune but has had a dramatic impact on his sport and sponsors. The cumulative economic impact over his 13- year career – on ticket sales in the National Basketball Association (NBA), […]

Sechaba ka’Nkosi The South African Communist Party politburo this week failed to reconcile its young radicals and its old guard on split nominations for the party’s highly contested leadership positions. On Tuesday, the politburo failed to come up with a single name for the party’s most contested position, that of the general secretary, between the […]

Andy Capostagno Golf It’s called getting the monkey off your back. Ernie Els had been number one on the Sony World rankings for two months and he was about to defend the US Open title for the second time in four years. In April the gentle giant from Kempton Park handled a satellite link-up to […]

Pallo Jordan CROSSFIRE Jeff Greenfield, an American journalist, relates his grandmother’s response to the Rosenberg “atomic bomb spies” trial. As someone who had grown up in Tsarist Russia, where the framing of Jews on trumped- up charges was a byword for the authorities, Greenfield’s granny always believed that the Rosenbergs had been framed and were […]

The African National Congress will have to do better in the Eastern Cape if it wants to retain the support of one of South Africa’s poorest provinces, writes Lizeka Mda The African National Congress is fortunate the elections are still a year away because were they to be held tomorrow, it seems the United Democratic […]

Andy Duffy A senior Western Cape police officer, found guilty by the police force of sexually harassing a female colleague, has been given a R1,6-million golden handshake, following a decision by the provincial attorney general to drop criminal charges. The former commander of the Woodstock police station, Mario Laubscher, walked off with his bumper retirement […]

The leading Maghrebian author, Tahar Ben Jelloun, attended this year’s Poetry Africa festival in Durban. He spoke to Stephen Gray Stephen Gray: How did you come to choose French above your home language? Tahar Ben Jelloun: I was born in Fez in 1944, in a modest and fairly traditionalist family, with Arabic as my home […]

Tangeni Amupadhi and Mungo Soggot Highway heists have become one of South Africa’s favourite crimes, with gangs of well-trained operatives pulling off a spate of audacious robberies involving tens of millions of rands. Police say they have arrested about 250 suspects, but a substantial number have escaped – as in the case of former African […]