On a bright, festive opening day of school, the first sign of the brutality to come was a solitary balloon drifting skyward. Diana Kubalova (14) felt the first trickle of fear when the smaller children in the front row of the school parade let go of their party balloons out of shock. ”At this moment I saw people in masks,” she said.

"There’s the smell of revolution in the air this week, both to the north of us as well as over in the United States, where the Republican Party reptiles are gathering in New York. And this past week saw the closing down of the only apparent opposition party in Zimbabwe. Was the Movement for Democratic Change a bona fide opposition party, or simply a ‘cut-out’?" Web crawler extraordinaire Ian Fraser ponders the political.

At their peaks, Jennifer Capriati and Lleyton Hewitt attracted all sorts of attention at every tournament. At this US Open, they are almost an afterthought. That’s fine for the former number-one players, especially while they are winning. Hewitt won his first-round match on Wednesday, defeating Wayne Ferreira of South Africa 6-1, 7-5, 6-4.

Motorists are advised to avoid the Johannesburg city centre on Thursday due to a march by an expected 20 000 South African Democratic Teacher’s Union members, metro police said. Metro police spokesperson Superintendent Edna Mamonyane said the marchers will make their way from Braamfontein’s Civic Centre, along De Korte, Harrison and Eloff streets to 111 Commissioner street.

The Border Bulldogs will want to make amends for last weekend’s drubbing when they meet the Mighty Elephants in East London on Friday evening in their Currie Cup first-division match at the Absa Stadium. The Bulldogs were unbeaten in four matches until coming badly unstuck against the Boland Cavaliers in Wellington.