Max du Preez’s famously shut-down <i>Vrye Weekblad</i> and new tabloid success <i>Kaapse Son</i> have a gesture in common: the big "up yours" to the establishment. But how are the more polite Afrikaans newspapers making out with a distracted and diversified readership? Toast Coetzer digs into the culture.
On Friday June 11 <i>ThisDay</i> was yellow. MTN Yello. Almost every page of the paper had been washed in yellow, as part of a celebratory campaign from MTN, and it has been the talk of the town since it hit the streets. Industry insiders are questioning whether the newspaper ‘sold its soul’ by going yellow.
A huge weather system predicted to generate swells between four and six metres in height has prompted the organisers of the third Red Bull Big Wave Africa (BWA) surfing event to put the 12 invited athletes on standby for a possible start on Wednesday morning. The 2004 edition of the event has featured only one day of surfing at Dungeons, the deep-water reef outside Hout Bay that produces the biggest rideable waves on the African continent.
Kevin Kennedy, the outgoing acting United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator for Sudan talks about the humanitarian situation in Darfur, the prospect of hundreds of thousands of internally displaced people moving to southern Sudan after a peace agreement has been signed, and the United Nation’s key areas of concern in Sudan.
Ben Shabalala, a member of South Africa’s most famous a cappella ensemble, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, was shot and killed in unknown circumstances, the group’s record company said. He was in his late 40s. Shabalala, whose brother Joseph founded and still leads the group, was killed on June 16 in a Durban suburb.
The Daily Telegraph was on Tuesday night sold to the Barclay brothers, the billionaire owners of the Ritz hotel in London, ending months of uncertainty for Britain’s best-selling upmarket newspaper. The Barclays are paying £665-million for the Telegraph Group, which also includes the Sunday Telegraph and the Spectator magazine.
Everyone suspected Denmark and Sweden would finish with a 2-2 tie and knock Italy out. No one really believed it when it happened. Antonio Cassano went on a long run of celebration after scoring Italy’s winning goal three minutes into extra time against Bulgaria, convinced he had put the ailing Azzurri into the last eight of Euro 2004.
The top two chess players at the World Chess Championship have earned a place in round three that starts on Wednesday, but England’s Nigel Short was knocked out the night before in the biggest upset of the tournament so far. Short, world number 15 and number five in the tournament, drew in Tuesday’s second round-two game with his Polish opponent Michal Krasenkow
Backs Matt Giteau and Mark Gerrard were included on Wednesday in the Australian team for Saturday’s Rugby World Cup final rematch against England at Suncorp Stadium. In the only two changes from the side that beat Scotland 34-13 in Sydney last weekend, Giteau comes into the starting line-up at inside centre while Gerrard is included in a Wallabies squad for the first time on the bench.
David Beckham may have the glamor, the good looks and the globally recognised name, but it’s his teammate Wayne Rooney — stocky, unpolished, and 18 years old — who has the soccer world swooning. With four goals in three games, he is the top scorer at the European Championship, stealing the limelight normally focused on Beckham and earning perhaps premature comparisons in the British press to Brazilian legend Pele.