RUGBY: Jon Swift WEARING a crown is one of the most uncomfortable and unwieldy=20 burdens given to sporting champions. Certainly, this proved the case for=20 South Africa at Ellis Park last Saturday. Even the 40-11 final scoreline=20 against the 14 Welshmen who remained on the field at the final whistle=20 didn=D5t quite re-gild the tarnish […]

Simmering tensions over land rights have boiled over after a dispute about= the burial of a teenager, reports Eddie Koch There is a war of the graves taking place in the Badplaas district that=20 shows, in a strange way, how the everyday lives of farmers and their labour= tenants are being shaped by a silent […]

CINEMA: Justin Pearce THERE=D5S something strangely fortuitous about the South African release=20 of Before the Rain coinciding with Nato=D5s long-awaited decision to slap= Serbia on its blood-spattered wrists. The film is, after all, an examinatio= n of=20 the relationship =D1 or, rather, the lack of relationship =D1 between Weste= Europe and the Balkans at a […]

CINEMA: Stanley Peskin IN Priest, director Antonia Bird clearly believes that two of the feathered= species in the hand are better than one in the bush. This is to say that Pr= is not the most subtle film. In complicity with Jimmy McGovern=D5s blunt=20 screenplay, Bird directs with a brashness that is sometimes overwrought.=20 Nevertheless, […]

A former national serviceman has claimed that SADF involvement in illicit= ivory smuggling continued well into the 1980s, writes Ann Eveleth A JUDICIAL commission of inquiry heard claims this week that the old=20 South African Defence Force (SADF) was involved in ivory smuggling on=20 behalf of Angola=D5s Unita rebels until at least 1987. Testimony by […]

Philippa Garson EVERY day, thousands of children rise before daybreak to begin an=20 arduous working day. Whether it is on farms, in coalyards, on streets=20 selling newspapers, hawking vegetables or prostituting, children are=20 labouring all over the country. The occasional case of abuse of working children may reach the media, but= for the most, the […]

ACRIMONY at the women=D5s forum at Huairou has provided an unhappy=20 prelude to the United Nations women=D5s conference which opened in=20 Beijing on Monday.=20 The forum is made up of hugely diverse non-governmental women=D5s=20 organisations. They have come as legitimate pressure groups, invited under= the UN banner, to press their interests at the Beijing conference. […]

Marion Edmunds =D4NO comment,=D3 was the response from Auditor General Henri Kleuver =20 and the chair of the Parliamentary Portfolio Finance Committee, ANC MP=20 Gill Marcus, this week when asked if they had faith in the financial=20 management of those provincial governments which have inherited bits=20 and pieces from the former TBVC states.=20 The Democratic […]

The Azanian Students=D5 Movement is misusing Steve Biko=D5s name for its= own sectarian interests, argues Mamphela Ramphele THE tensions around the Azanian Students Movement=D5s (Azasm)=20 campaign to have white teachers in schools previously set aside for black= people replaced by unemployed black teachers, in the name of black=20 solidarity, is a chilling reminder of the […]

Justin Pearce M-NET=D5S African Film Awards are coming out of hiding for the first time= this year, with a festival which will bring the best of the competition ent= to audiences in Cape Town and Gauteng. The festival line-up comprises seven films from West and North Africa,=20 something which is made possible by the opening […]