Neil Manthorp in Amsterdam Cricket It is funny that we call ourselves a sports-crazy nation. There has never been a sports event in South Africa that has commanded, or even demanded, that the whole population sits up and takes notice. The Rugby World Cup final is an over- used example of when this was supposed […]
Chris McGreal Many will remember Chief Moshood Abiola as a political martyr denied presidential power, even though he came to prominence as an opportunist businessman, prepared to do deals with Nigeria’s soldiers until the very end. In the days before he died, Abiola had been ready to forsake his presidential claims, according to the various […]
Belinda Beresford The power of compounding interest is on your side when you make extra payments on your bond. Say you have a R150 000, 20-year bond at 22% interest with Standard Bank. The total cost – capital and interest – of the bond would be R668 542, and the monthly repayment would be R2 […]
It may be the cure for many sexual problems, but will Viagra get to the root of sexual relationships? Jennifer Steinhauer of The New York Times and David Shapshak report Viagra, the miracle impotence drug, may kickstart men’s libidos but it’s not the cure-all for dysfunctional relationships. While millions of men around the world have […]
Maputo It is four months since Robert McBride was arrested in Mozambique. Since then, many thousands of words have been spoken and written about it. This interview, conducted by his wife Paula McBride, represents the first time the voice of McBride himself has been heard since his arrest During the past few weeks I have […]
Howard Barrell: OVER A BARREL There are, I’m sure, many reasons to admire communists. One which dwarfs all others, though, is their talent for rationalisation. Their ability to explain away past failures in such a way as to be able to retain a set of ill-fitting core beliefs is quite remarkable. The origin of this […]
Graham Farmelo Only the most foolhardy person would try to predict the future of the World Wide Web, but that didn’t stop its inventor, Tim Berners-Lee, from trying some crystal-ball gazing last week. During Internet, Web, What Next?, a conference at the Cern atom-smasher laboratory in Geneva, Berners-Lee and others speculated on what they hoped […]
Swapna Prabhakaran Whether you are a working Mozambican mamma or a leisured Amex-wielding tourist, there’s only one way to get between KwaZulu-Natal and Maputo in style – take the brand new trans- Lubombo train. The new service was recently launched by Spoornet from Durban station, to make its way over the Lubombo mountains, through Swaziland […]
Lauren Shantall To reach Heart of Darkness, one must embark on a symbolic journey into the bowels of the hulking 1820 Settlers Monument. There, one will confront an Africa of the past – that mythical place of the European imagination – and the multi-dimensional Africa of the present day. Finally, one encounters the minds of […]
Suzy Bell Alfred Hitchcock fans will drool, and politically-sussed bhangra-babes will ditch their men for the night to watch award-winning Indian director Mani Ratnam’s film Irwar (The Duo). Yep, it’s the 19th Durban International Film Festival and there’s something for everyone among the 20 feature films and four documentaries. The films are mainly from Britain, […]