Maureen Barnes Down the tube Of all the irritating things about SABC TV, I think the one which bothers me the most is its inflexibility – a hangover, like so many aspects of the present service, from the previous policy-makers. SABC3 decided – and please don’t think I’m knocking this decision – that on Saturday […]

Blue Bulls vs Western Province Andy Capostagno Rugby On Tuesday the fixtures for the 1999 Super 12 competition were released. Coincidence, or is the Sanzar (South Africa, New Zealand, Australia Rugby) committee concerned that the Currie Cup is stealing its thunder? For all the advances made since South Africa was readmitted to international competition in […]

Wonder Hlongwa It was handing over my autobank card and pin number that convinced me my visit to a loan shark was not going to be pleasant. A friend had told me that loan sharks were the quickest moneylenders in the city. The sign at the one in Braamfontein certainly seemed to back this up: […]

Andrew Worsdale Movies of the week With more than 29 shorts and 30 features, the fifth gay and lesbian film festival is expanding with massive hard-on proportions. This is because the “queer” film industry is doing so well, and is regarded internationally as the vanguard of cutting edge independent cinema. As more than 15 000 […]

Robert Kirby A FIELD GUIDE TO WILD FLOWERS OF KWAZULU-NATAL AND THE EASTERN REGION by Elsa Pooley (Natal Flora Publications Trust) Let me begin by declaring a thoroughly personal interest. I have known Elsa Pooley for many years. She and her family have been close friends of mine since we first met in 1960s. Her […]

In the week the TRC released its final report, Penuell Maduna was trying to hide the name of an African politician who enjoyed the National Party’s largesse, writes Mungo Soggot The bizarre saga of how the apartheid government bankrolled the election of a West African president by inflating the South African taxpayers’ crude oil bill […]

Paul Farrely: SHARE WORLD The irony is delicious. The despair in markets the world over has just made Wall Street’s biggest optimist very, very rich indeed. Last week, Abby Joseph Cohen, cool- headed chief investment strategist at Goldman Sachs and the United States’s most influential market guru, finally claimed one of the biggest prizes on […]

Wally Mbhele Winnie Madikizela-Mandela stands accused of being central to the formation and activities of the Mandela United Football Club, whose members were involved in at least 18 cold-blooded murders. In a harsh judgment on her association with the football club, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s (TRC) final report said most Mandela United operations were […]

Sharon Hammond The Kruger National Park will present its much-awaited proposal for a new policy on managing its elephant population on Saturday. This follows decades of highly emotional criticism for culling the animals in an effort to keep the population in the park at a fixed number of between 7 000 and 7 500. “We […]

Oral poetry has always played an important role in South African culture, write Richard Bowker and Peter Makurube When President Nelson Mandela entered his birthday bash at Gallagher Estate in July, he was led in by the boy-poet Samkhelo Mcandi, waxing lyrical about Madiba’s greatness. All in impeccable Xhosa. He was following in the footsteps […]