Andy Capostagno Rugby Times have changed. In 1995 the newly crowned world champion Springboks played Wales at Ellis Park. You may remember the game. Gary Teichmann, unluckily overlooked for the World Cup, made his debut at eighth man and scored a try. Robbie Kempson, a young and promising prop forward from Natal, sat on the […]
Andy Duffy A senior Western Cape police officer, found guilty by the police force of sexually harassing a female colleague, has been given a R1,6-million golden handshake, following a decision by the provincial attorney general to drop criminal charges. The former commander of the Woodstock police station, Mario Laubscher, walked off with his bumper retirement […]
Mark Tran in New York Basketball He is sport’s first $10-billion man. Michael Jordan, the basketball player, has not only built a vast personal fortune but has had a dramatic impact on his sport and sponsors. The cumulative economic impact over his 13- year career – on ticket sales in the National Basketball Association (NBA), […]
Andy Capostagno Golf It’s called getting the monkey off your back. Ernie Els had been number one on the Sony World rankings for two months and he was about to defend the US Open title for the second time in four years. In April the gentle giant from Kempton Park handled a satellite link-up to […]
Sechaba ka’Nkosi A new row among senior managers has hit the SABC following recent appointments and new vacancies created in the corporation’s radio news section. The radio battle comes after the former head of the division and now deputy chief executive Govin Reddy launched a public challenge against the appointment of the Reverend Hawu Mbatha […]
Chris Gordon As increasing Unita military activity is reported across Angola, the United Nations has imposed a fresh set of conditional sanctions on Angola’s intransigent rebel movement, in what is now a bid to avert serious conflict. These sanctions will come into force on June 25 if Unita does not surrender its headquarter towns and […]
The leading Maghrebian author, Tahar Ben Jelloun, attended this year’s Poetry Africa festival in Durban. He spoke to Stephen Gray Stephen Gray: How did you come to choose French above your home language? Tahar Ben Jelloun: I was born in Fez in 1944, in a modest and fairly traditionalist family, with Arabic as my home […]
Tangeni Amupadhi and Mungo Soggot Highway heists have become one of South Africa’s favourite crimes, with gangs of well-trained operatives pulling off a spate of audacious robberies involving tens of millions of rands. Police say they have arrested about 250 suspects, but a substantial number have escaped – as in the case of former African […]
Lords Neil Manthorp Cricket Lords is a funny place. The funniest moment of South Africa’s last visit in 1994 involved, almost inevitably, Fanie de Villiers. The Afrikaans school teacher cum part-time amateur car mechanic had reached the pinnacle of the game when he arrived in England and began preparations to represent his country, in a […]
Julie Frederikse has written two new additions to the Maskew Miller Longman series They Fought for Freedom, a set of short, accessible biographies of great South African opponents of apartheid. Though Helen Joseph and David Webster came from two different epochs in the fight against oppression, they shared common characteristics and a unique connection. Joseph […]