Andy Capostagno rugby It would be tempting to believe that South Africa’s entire post-season tour had been building up to Saturday’s encounter with England at Twickenham. The Springboks played 7s rugby against Argentina and barely deserved last-gasp victories in colourless encounters with Ireland and Wales. All utterly irrelevant as long as England are beaten. But […]

They’re travelling all over the world and three of them scored four of the five goals in Spartak’s game against Arsenal last week Amy Lawrence As the ball glided around on an ice-rink pitch in Moscow’s Luzhniki Stadium, there was something surreal about the fact that four of the five goals in a game between […]

Innovations Here’s another good reason not to misbehave at your upcoming office Christmas party. Scheduled to go on sale next week is the SpyPen, a tiny digital camera squeezed into a slim upright frame not a great deal larger than an average ballpoint. The SpyPen takes and archives low-resolution (352×288 pixels) images that can then […]

Belinda Beresford The Medicines Control Council has approved the use of a generic drug, Biozole, on public health grounds. The council’s acknowledgement of humanitarian arguments potentially opens the door to the mass importation of cheaper medicines to combat Aids and its side effects. The ruling comes after the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) illegally imported 3000 […]

MC Sparky The annual award ceremony at the Ablelarde Sanction in Brixton, Johannesburg, is set to delight unsigned bands, general public and major publications alike. “Our commitment to cheap booze, contraband cigarettes and teddy bears remains unchallenged … the struggle continues.” This vague statement boldly pasted on the inner wall of the Abelarde Sanction in […]

Robert Kitson rugby Of all the grim picket-line images involving the England squad last week, few will fade slower than Jason Leonard, in his brown leather jacket and jeans, standing calmly in the car park of the team hotel and announcing that, yes, he was as prepared as anyone to sacrifice his international career on […]

Andrew Muchineripi soccer If ever a community scored an own goal it was Vosloorus last weekend when a bunch of barbarians brought shame to the East Rand, Gauteng and South Africa. Unless I have been reading the mind of President Thabo Mbeki upside down, what had been happening in the East Rand township was exactly […]

A new book suggests that a South African mercenary may have assassinated a former UN secretary general Nawaal Deane A new biography of former United Nations secretary general Dag Hammarskjld has rekindled suspicions of South African involvement in his death. Hammarskjld was killed in an airplane crash on September 18 1961 near Ndola, Northern Rhodesia, […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Pretoria | Friday UNETHICAL business practices are common among South African doctors, with nearly two-thirds of doctors in a study about ethical practice in the medical profession that they had seen a colleague acting unethically. According to a report in Afrikaans daily Beeld, almost two thirds (65%) said doctors supplement their income by […]