OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Thursday 7.00am. EASTERN Province thrashed Boland by 62 runs in their Standard Bank League limited-overs cricket match at St George’s Park on Wednesday night, with their bowlers particularly devastating. Eastern Province scored 224 in their alotted 45 overs, with Louis Koen, Dave Callaghan and Mark Rushmere playing good innings. Koen again […]

Uganda’s president may still be popular, writes Mercedes Sayagues, but ethnic mistrust and corruption are poisoning the country When the 5Y-ANV Islander plane carrying Lieutenant Colonel Jet Mwebaze crashed in the Rwenzori mountains of southeastern Uganda last month, five lives, a stash of money – said to be US$1-million – and the reputation of the […]

Howard Barrell : OVER A BARREL Nigeria and South Africa, radically different in so many ways, are similar in at least one respect: the way language, at least the English language, is used by many of their political intellectuals. This became apparent last year when I spent two months in Nigeria co-teaching a few courses […]

One of the most mysterious places in the world will be the most highly surveyed, writes Alex Bellos Cold War technology is being adapted to fight drug smugglers and illegal miners who are threatening the Amazon jungle. A surveillance system (known by its Portuguese acronym, Sivam, and being set up by the Brazilian government) will […]

Duncan Mackay : Athletics When Tegla Loroupe returned to Kenya after winning the New York City Marathon in 1994, a party was organised and the villagers presented her parents with nine cattle, 16 sheep and some land. Yet it was the words of the women in her tribe she still values the most. “You did […]

Bill Ann Eveleth : IN THE ACT Minister of Health Nkosazana Zuma has the tobacco industry huffing and puffing over the Tobacco Products Control Amendment Bill, which aims to discourage young people from taking up smoking. Anti-smokers and a curious array of pro- tobacco lobbyists – including the Congress of South African Trade Union’s affiliated […]

This could be one of those rare concerts that goes down in history like the Amnesty International Concert in Harare in 1988. So if you’ve got some wheels and you’re in need of a restorative African musical adventure, then put that cabbie into first and head for lush Mpumalanga. About 30 minutes past Nelspruit off […]

Ken Barris THE LOSTNESS OF ALICE by John Conyngham (Ad Donker) The Lostness of Alice, the third novel by KwaZulu-Natal author John Conyngham, is placed on the cusp of South Africa’s transition. FW de Klerk is still in power, negotiations are proceeding in fits and starts, and the pariah status of the country is only […]

Wally Mbhele Plans for the release of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s final report were almost ambushed this week when the African National Congress attempted to use its power to prevent its publication. This followed the ANC’s blistering opposition to some aspects of the commission’s findings on the party’s activities during the armed struggle. The […]

Loose cannon: Robert Kirby Like a lot of other South African men, I was pleasantly amused by Suzanne Daley’s often humorous quips about how diffident we South African males have been when it has come to keeping up with the life-needs of the ladies in our midst (“I’ll Have To Ask My Husband”, October 16 […]