TAIWAN President Chen Shui-bian has pardoned 21 convicts, including 19 Jehovah’s Witnesses who were jailed for resisting conscription. The pardon will take effect on Human Rights Day on Sunday. Only six of the 19 are in jail. The others have been released on parole. Jehovah’s Witnesses are barred from conscription, political activities and accepting blood […]

JAMES HALL, Johannesburg | Friday A TRIO of Swaziland appeal court judges have sat alternately stonefaced and slack-jawed as a man appealing against an incest conviction explained that the rape of the eldest daughter is required to secure a male heir to the family homestead. Generations of fathers in Jasper Nxumalo’s family of Hhohho, Swaziland, […]

COLIN MCCLELLAND, Luanda | Friday HUMAN rights gained ground in several southern African countries in the past year, an annual report by New York-based Human Rights Watch said this week. The advocacy group’s report suggested the region’s move to democracy looked sustainable and that globalisation and Internet communication were major forces behind the changes. ”To […]

Ten lucky readers can each win a hamper of Justine skincare products to the value R1?000. Justine is one of the sponsors of the Miss South Africa pageant. The hampers will go to the first 10 readers to correctly identify the 1973 winner of the Miss Africa South pageant featured on the cover of Friday. […]

Marianne Merten Racial divides were entrenched in the elections for the Cape Town unicity, where the Democratic Alliance demolished the African National Congress outside the city’s townships. White and coloured Capetonians from Constantia, to working-class communities on the Cape Flats, all voted for the DA. In contrast the party scored just a few hundred votes […]

Slow pitches snuffed out the excitement as South Africa took the series against the New Zealanders Peter Robinson Among a number of attributes, Shaun Pollock is also one of the youngest 27-year-olds you’re likely to come across. All the same, he’s shrewd enough to know when to leave well enough alone. After South Africa had […]

Andrew Muchineripi soccer There was no shortage of spin doctors when the Rothmans Cup so extravagantly took off four years ago and, for once, the happenings actually matched the hype. Remember those two “unbelievable” finals between Kaizer Chiefs and Sundowns? Remember the legitimate Sundowns goal that was disallowed? Remember Paul Dolezar, the coach who seemed […]

A photographic display in the Northern Province puts its big-city rivals to shame. Stephen Gray looks at the life of one of the best chroniclers of South Africa’s past Prizing itself on its uniqueness, the new provincial capital of the north, Pietersburg, has a cultural attraction which is without equal in South Africa an entire […]

AFree State town has paid appropriate and touching tribute to its most famous son Stephen Gray The hamlet of Philippolis in the Transgariep, south-west Free State, has developed a striking new feature to commemorate one of its celebrated sons. This is no waggon-wheel and ironstone affair, or variation on a tombstone like their memorial to […]