Tariq Ali: A SECOND LOOK Summer has returned to Pakistan with a vengeance. In the blistering heat of the plains the people, misinformed and miserable, are celebrating the explosion of their very own nuclear device. India had exploded a Hindu bomb. Pakistan had countered by detonating a Muslim device. Honour had been satisfied and in […]
Adrian Turpin Profile: Sam Rockwell To become a star every actor needs a quirk in his or her private life. A handy hook, preferably unconnected with work, something that allows people to say, “Yeah, that’s the guy who …” For Sam Rockwell, it’s what he does in bed. “My mother, let’s just say, was a […]
Mark Gleeson in Baiersbronn World Cup It is a persistent debate as to which is bigger and better and commands the most prestige – soccer’s World Cup or the Olympic Games. Both claim television audiences in the billions, unscientific figures that still seem to seduce multi-million dollar marketing packages out of corporate coffers. The World […]
Krisjan Lemmer With less than a year to go before the centenary of the Anglo-Boer War, there has been muttering in the Dorsbult Bar about the belated discovery by the Brits that Lord Herbert Kitchener, the war hero, was a bit of a cad. The BBC’s Reputations series appears to have stumbled upon the fact […]
Andy Capostagno Rugby When Geoff Cooke was England’s coach in the glory days of the late 1980s and early 1990s, he had a phrase that used to come out whenever journalists believed that a player had been unfairly discarded. “The graveyards are full of indispensable men,” he would say. It is interesting to speculate whether […]
unrest Mail & Guardian reporters The army weapon and ammunition heists in Bloemfontein may have been intended to fuel instability in Lesotho. This scenario was flighted by security experts this week as police made their first arrests. Lesotho has been racked by protests since claims by opposition parties that the ruling Lesotho Congress for Democracy […]
Charl Blignaut On stage in Johannesburg From the parking lot already, it is obvious that this is not going to be a regular evening at the theatre. There are large, mounted candles burning outside on the lawn of the Federasie van Afrikaanse Kultuurvereenigings’s Trap der Jeugd national monument building in Cottlesloe, Johannesburg, and there are […]
Andy Duffy The Ministry of Education wants to spend R200-million this year to boost leadership skills in the provinces – a plan that will also give national officials far greater control over the often chaotic management of provincial education. The plans include setting up a rapid response unit to defuse provincial crises in areas such […]
Neil Manthorp Cricket As far as records show, there were no Bears in the South African touring sides that sailed for England in 1924, 1929 or 1960, the only three occasions on which South Africa have played England at Edgbaston before. In 11 series against the colonisers, the colonised have won just three – and […]
and clothes Andy Duffy An independent probe has found that the Student Representative Council (SRC)of the troubled University of the North (Turfloop) spent more than R1,3- million last year on items such as hired cars, catering and clothes. Poor controls had also left the SRC accounts open to fraud – more than half the expenditure […]