As the Rugby World Cup reaches its peak this weekend,=20 Luke Alfred looks at a book which examines the=20 relationship between the sport and life in South Africa IN AUGUST 1992, a dark month for South Africa in=20 general and rugby in particular, a journalist from the=20 Sunday Star wrote: “It is hard to write […]

Writing stories on the sex lives of presidents has become a dangerous occupation for Southern African journalists, writes David Lush Just last month, the publisher and two editors of Zimbabwe’s Financial Gazette were arrested, interrogated and charged with an offence which has hardly seen the light of day since the fall of Ian Smith’s Rhodesia […]

Rehana Rossouw THE Department of Foreign Affairs has been blasted for=20 “embarrassing” South Africa by not affording diplomatic=20 recognition to fellow Organisation of African Unity=20 member, the Sahrawi Republic. African National Congress executive committee member=20 Jeremy Cronin, writing in the South African Communist=20 Party publication African Communist, gave two examples=20 of South Africa’s ambiguous relationship […]

THEATRE: David Le Page LARA FOOT has directed a rather noisy silent movie.=20 It’s called Womb Tide, and is masquerading as theatre=20 in the Laager at the Market, complete with a little=20 boer clown, an alternatively vulgar and sympathetic=20 heroine, and a properly precocious child. The filmic elements abound. Brian Webber plays a=20 congenitally awkward […]

Clive Simpkins The communications, marketing and health sectors of=20 countries around the world, particularly in Africa, are=20 failing the most critical test of their expertise. Not=20 simply because it’s a complex one, but because it’s an=20 unpopular one and affects “other people”. That problem=20 is Aids awareness. Latest World Health Organisation statistics indicate=20 that sub-Saharan […]

M-Net should not hide its real results behind its=20 restructuring, argues Jacques Magliolo ELECTRONIC Media Networks (M-Net) produced poor results=20 for the third year running, and directors are hiding=20 behind the incomparability of financial statements.=20 The company’s preliminary report states: “Results for=20 the year ended March 31 1994 include businesses now=20 housed in MultiChoice and […]

Justin Pearce The South African Police Services are to face a court=20 challenge over the exclusion of people with HIV=20 infection from the force. Police unions and human=20 rights law organisations have filed papers in the=20 Transvaal Supreme Court arguing that SAPS policy of=20 pre-employment HIV testing is discriminatory in that it=20 excludes people with […]

Movable Feast ON a cold, wet and windy winter’s night, we drove along=20 a lane next to Cape Town’s Liesbeeck River and ran=20 through the rain into the shelter of the Wild Fig. We=20 closed the door to the elements and found ourselves=20 warmly welcomed (or was it congratulated?) for having=20 braved the night to […]

Most South Africans have sickened under one of the=20 world’s most skewed and inefficient health care=20 systems. It’s been in desperate need of major surgery,=20 and Health Minister Nkosazana Zuma is to be commended=20 for bringing an extensive, carefully constructed set of=20 proposals to the discussion table a little more than a=20 year after coming […]

Does the defiantly un-PC humour of comedy duo Programme=20 Fluoride deserve a place in the new South Africa? JOHN=20 PHILLIPS reports IT’S 6pm in an Irish pub in central Cape Town and Chris=20 McEvoy and Roger Christian — the two determinedly=20 confrontational comedians who make up Programme=20 Fluoride — are poised over pints of Guinness […]