Batting rather than bowling is now South Africa’s strength Peter Robinson Herschelle Gibbs started the year with a duck. He ends it with more than 1 000 Test runs to his name (and still two Tests against Australia to come in this calendar). In many respects the re-emergence of Gibbs has mirrored a gradual shift […]

comment John Stremlau With the defeat of the Taliban in Afghanistan, the United States has begun to think seriously about the next phase in its global war against terrorism. This should spur all other countries with stakes in the anti-terror campaign to review their options. For South Africans three issues stand out. l What action […]

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 […]