Andrew Muchineripi : Boxing Welcome Ncita and Sugarboy Malinga could be nicknamed the comeback twins for both are making returns to the ring after long layoffs. Ncita (32) is scheduled to fight Hector Lizaragga, the number one contender for the IBF featherweight title vacated by the British wonderboy Naseem “Prince” Hamed. The bout is set […]

Ferial Haffajee `What could women’s magazines be like if they were as editorially free as books? As realistic as newspapers? As creative as films? As diverse as women’s lives? We don’t know” – wrote Gloria Steinem in 1990, The article is reproduced in ms magazine’s October issue because its editors believe her argument still stands […]

Mungo Soggot Two eminent businessmen resigned last year from an investment fund set up by Don Mkhwanazi after he paid himself and a Liberian consultant huge salaries and the fund’s first venture flopped. Mkhwanazi founded the National Empowerment Trust in 1994, together with the National Empowerment Trust Investment Fund, which he chaired. But the two […]

Art of noise Britain’s Turner Prize, one of the world’s most controversial contemporary art awards, was announced this week. But for once the annual controversy emanated not from the work on show (this year’s winner was a comparatively explicable 15-foot video projection of 26 policemen by Gillian Wearing) but from the behaviour of one of […]

Stefaans Brmmer A close associate of Emanuel Shaw II, the controversial Liberian adviser to South Africa’s Central Energy Fund, was investigated by Dutch authorities on suspicion he participated in a crime syndicate that used West Africa as a transit point for massive drugs shipments to Europe. Dutch investigators say they are no longer pursuing Shaw’s […]

Andrew Muchineripi : Soccer Initial local reaction to a World Cup draw that had South Africa in Group C with hosts France, Denmark and Saudi Arabia was extremely favourable and national coach Clive Barker smiled and clapped as he discovered who his opponents were. The overwhelming view among Bafana Bafana players, assembled at Midrand for […]

Brett Davidson : In your ear The country’s older radio stations have been re-inventing themselves to better compete against the fresh-faced commercial debutants new on the scene. The degree of change is generally in proportion to the level of competition in any given region. On the one end of the scale is 94.7 Highveld Stereo. […]

FRIDAY, 12.00NOON: SOUTH African soccer coach Clive Barker’s plans were dealt a severe blow when three of his players laid low with stomach bug on Thursday. Midfielders Doctor Khumalo and Dumisani Ngobe and striker Pollen Ndlanya had an easy workout at Thursday’s training session. “We’ll be keeping our fingers crossed for them,” said Barker. Bafana […]

smuggling Jan Breytenbach, a legend in the former SADF, describes how he discovered that senior officers were using ivory-smuggling routes for their own corrupt ends Jonas Savimbi’s headquarters was at a place called Jamba, a sort of squatter camp 10km south of the Biongue omuramba (flood plain) and about 15km south of the Luiana River. […]

Africa may have contributed little to greenhouse gases, but that hasn’t made it immune to global warming, writes James C McKinley All year long, the weather across Africa has been freaky and extreme, a product, meteorologists suspect, of the El Nio phenomenon in the Pacific Ocean. In East Africa, the year began with drought and […]