Marianne Merten For the women of Silvertree Rugby Football Club in Mitchells Plain on the Cape Flats playing rugby is nothing new they have been at the game since 1954. Since the club’s inception in the historic District Six almost 50 years ago, women have played rugby at fundraising games. Today the mother of one […]
Charlene Smith Keith Bennett has a mild manner and a pleasant face many would call him charming. Yet last Wednesday a Roodepoort magistrate sentenced him to 18 years in jail. For more than 20 years he had beaten, raped, shot, stabbed and terrorised his former wife. On each of the many occasions he had been […]
When racism goes underground analysis Mark Heywood In the last turbulent years before the advent of democracy in South Africa, many lives were lost in urban areas of what was then the Transvaal and Natal. Supporters of the Inkatha Freedom Party, armed by white racists of the ilk of Eugene de Kock, launched merciless attacks […]
Jaspreet Kindra The stage has been set for a comrade-versus-comrade battle at least till the alliance summit, scheduled for late September. For the first time in years the African National Congress publicly hammered its alliance partners, particularly the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu). The ANC believes Cosatu has been infiltrated by ultra left-wing […]
This past week has held a message for the men and women at the top of the African National Congress. It has been delivered by two apparently unrelated events. That warning is this: that the people of this country will resist, and publicly shame, the ANC leadership’s attempts to curtail debate. There are a number […]
Ufrieda Ho Up to 45% of drug cases are being tossed out of court a staggering statistic that indicates rot in the law enforcement system. This finding is drawn from statistics in six provinces, excluding the Western, Eastern and Northern Cape. It reveals a system dogged by a lack of integrity and competence by police […]
obituary: Ken Tyrell The world of Formula One is mourning the death of Ken Tyrrell, the one-time timber merchant who became one of the sport’s major team owners. Tyrrell, who has died of cancer at his home in Surrey, was 77. With Bernie Ecclestone, the late Lotus founder Colin Chapman and Frank Williams, Tyrrell was […]
Ntuthuko Maphumulo Two of the top teams in the Premier Soccer League will face each other in a “best of the best” BP Top 8 final on Saturday at FNB stadium for the R1-million prize money. Sundowns and Kaizer Chiefs are no strangers to million-rand prize money competitions; Kaizer Chiefs won the Rothmans Cup twice […]
Grant Shimmin in Wellington For the neutral, the Tri-Nations could scarcely be finishing on a more exciting note, with a winner-take-all clash at the scene of one of the great encounters in modern Test rugby. Last year Sydney’s Stadium Australia was preparing to host the Olympic Games when the All Blacks and Wallabies opened their […]
GOVANMBEKI Govan Mbeki’s death this week ends one of the longest and most heroic lives in liberation politics. Govan Mvuyelwa Mbeki was born in 1910 in Nqamakwe, Transkei, the son of a deposed chief. After attending various Methodist mission schools he completed a BA at Fort Hare in 1937 and subsequently worked in the Transkei […]