Thabo Mohlala The National Intelligence Services and the South African national gliding team are involved in a row after the NIS cancelled a booking made by the team ahead of the world championships in Mafikeng in December. Team manager Quintin Maine says this threw their plans into disarray. He says as the host nation and […]

Soccer administrators must play the game Ntuthuko Maphumulo South Africa’s soccer fortunes will fall faster than the rand next year if South African Football Association (Safa) and Premier Soccer League (PSL) administrators do not act fast. The cracks are already showing within Safa over who signed the deal that gave all marketing rights of Bafana […]

We need to start listening to the world anew. Our survival may depend on it, writes Natasha Mostert Among the many grotesque edicts of Afghanistan’s Taliban mullahs, the ban on music ranked as one of the most incomprehensible. The idea that someone could be flogged for whistling a tune or clapping to a beat boggles […]

New, exciting discoveries at the Sterkfontein cave complex have put South Africa back on the palaeoanthropological map Drew Forrest Once the victim of the cultural boycott and a stunning series of fossil hominid discoveries in East and North-East Africa, South African palaeoanthropology is staging a big comeback. The pendulum began to swing back two years […]

Media freedom is likely to come under increasing attack in Zimbabwe in the new year Chris McGreal This article will be punishable by up to two years in prison under the new media Bill likely to become law in Zimbabwe early next year. For a start, it quotes The Herald newspaper in Harare a government […]

Maggie Davey On certain days when all is right with the world, and the sun tilts at a fine angle, it can make sense to know that Frank Sinatra’s favourite colour was orange. Or that practically every item in the TV series Buck Rogers in the 25th Century had rounded edges and art deco design […]

channel vision Robert Kirby This is the last column of the year and, as is the habit of columnists, I take a fearful look across the year behind us to see what really stood out in television. No prizes for guessing that the coverage of the World Trade Center attacks was the winner in a […]

SOCCER Ntuthuko Maphumulo It’s an African Champions’ League final that has all the ingredients of greatness. If Sundowns can upset the form book and get a victory in Egypt on Friday they will earn the respect of the whole continent and pocket more than R10-million. To emulate Orlando Pirates the only South African club so […]

Suzan Chala meets Funky Ngobeni, one of thousands of young children forced to support their family Every second day after school 13-year-old Joe Ngobeni fetches water for villagers from a well an hour and a half away. Funky his mother called him that charges 50c for 25 litres of water. He says he carries about […]

Fiona Macleod In the reality game that people play on the planet, South Africans have evicted more than 50 species and nominated hundreds more for eviction. We also have a fair number of popular favourites voted to win the survival race. An ambitious report being prepared for the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development shows […]