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/ 1 September 2006

Finally, White sees the light

If there is a silver lining to last week’s 45-26 defeat by the All Blacks it is that Springbok coach Jake White has recognised the need for a total overhaul. This week’s line-up to play New Zealand near Rustenburg contains five changes and a positional switch. If you wanted to be hypercritical you might argue that White has not been severe enough in his pruning.

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/ 1 September 2006

Andre Agassi: Departure of a legend

I first took notice of Andre Agassi during the 1988 French Open, a tournament I particularly remember as it coincided with my last meaningful attempt to get fit. I’d installed an exercise bicycle in front of the telly so I could watch tennis while I pedalled my way to nowhere.

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/ 1 September 2006

Too batty for the box office

In Hollywood movies, a single plot twist is no longer considered sufficient: the first surprise is the down payment on a more amazing revelation. Off-screen events now follow the same logic: Mel Gibson’s drunk, anti-Semitic rant simply began the widening of eyes that now gape fully with the news that Viacom-Paramount is abandoning its production […]

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/ 1 September 2006

If you don’t get it, forget it

Branford Marsalis, McCoy Mrubata, Greg Georgiades and Paul Hanmer may not have planned things this way. But as sometimes happens in the Republic of Bohemia, they find themselves firmly the focus of debate at dinner tables, where conversation revolves around the question: What is jazz? Marsalis took Sunday Times journalist Bongani Madondo to task for […]

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/ 1 September 2006

Court backs right to wear anti-Bush shirt

Zachary Guiles knew he was being provocative when he showed up for school two years ago in a T-shirt that accused George Bush of being a war-mongering draft-dodger, a drunkard and a drug addict. What the 13-year-old may not have realised was that he would provoke a major free-speech battle that culminated this week in a court victory.

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/ 1 September 2006

Hope and despair in Lebanon’s Bint Jbeil

Hope and despair coexist in the rubble of Bint Jbeil, the southern Lebanese town that saw some of the fiercest fighting of the war between Israel and the Hezbollah Shiite militia. ”Of course it will rebuild, sooner or later,” says Ali Hassan Bazzi (45) who stopped by the damaged shop of his friend Mohammed Bazzi (32).