Ros Davidson Highland Games California might seem a strange place to stage Highland Games, but that is not the only unusual feature of this weekend’s 133rd annual Scottish Games and Gathering near San Francisco. For alongside the men in kilts throwing huge wooden cabers and lumps of granite will be the graceful form of Shannon […]

Chris McGreal Jean Kambanda was bathing when soldiers burst through his front door four years ago. Rwanda’s genocide was starting and he was sure death was knocking. The soldiers nabbed him and offered him not a bullet in the head, but an invitation to lead the government – which came to oversee the slaughter of […]

Forget Viagra. There’s a natural alternative that’s bound to keep you up all night, writes Mercedes Sayagues If you live in Zimbabwe, you have probably heard the stories: of dusk-to- dawn erections that exhaust women; of non-stop sex and multiple ejaculations all night long; of formidable hard-ons that land men in hospital, even kill them. […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Maseru | Friday 11.30PM. THE commander of the Lesotho Defence Force, Lieutenant-General Makhula Mosakheng, announced his resignation with immediate effect on Friday night. Mosakheng said on Radio Lesotho that Brigadier-Commander Thibeli had taken over the running of the army. Mosakheng also announced that 26 senior officers had been dismissed “in the public interest”. […]

JUSTIN ARENSTEIN, Nelspruit | Friday 2.30pm. MPUMALANGA finance MEC Jacques Modipane on Friday again refused to explain why he failed to warn the Reserve Bank or any other government fiscal body about an illegal R500-million offshore loan deal entered into by the Mpumalanga Parks Board (MPB) last year. Modipane conceded that the International Bank of […]

John Crace First Person Madonna, Michael Jackson and Lenny Henry did it last month. Caroline Quentin, Jennifer Saunders, Michelle Pfeiffer, Sean Bean, Gary Oldman, Sharon Stone and Rik Mayall did it earlier in the year. And come November, Jamie Lee Curtis will be doing it, too. Not so long ago, 40 was old. It was […]

MICHAEL METELITS, Johannesburg | Thursday 6.30pm. A plummeting Dow, and little help from overseas investors rocked the share and bond markets on Thursday. Traders suggested that bonds will only pick up if the rand breaks out of the R6,23 to the dollar range. The bright spot was the rising price of gold, which pushed gold […]

In terms of human development, South Africa ranks third in sub-Saharan Africa, writes Ann Eveleth South Africa jumped one point on the global development scale in the first year of democracy, according to a United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) report released this week. The UNDP Human Development Report 1998 ranks South Africa 89th out of […]

Donna Block Share World The wicked witch of the East is once again spoiling things in the land of Oz. The troubles plaguing Australia’s Asian neighbours has left the country’s stocks sagging and commodity prices hitting new lows. Australia and New Zealand are vulnerable to an economic downturn. Their stock markets are suffering not only […]

Alexander McQueen asked some of fashion’s leading designers to dress people with physical disabilities. His aim? Not to change the world, but to challenge our perceptions of beauty. By Susannah Frankel `W hat do you think?” asks Aimee Mullins. “Pretty funky, isn’t it?” It is, on the face of it, just like any other studio […]