PETER DICKSON, Port Elizabeth | Friday HIV causes Aids – but death in most cases is from depression. That’s the opinion of Eastern Cape MEC for Health Dr Bevan Goqwana, who also believes circumcision and single-sex boarding schools to be at the cutting edge of prevention. Goqwana went public on his beliefs in Umtata last […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT AND REUTERS, Paris | Friday THE son of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi has admitted that Tripoli paid $6m to Muslim rebels on the Philippine island of Jolo to secure the release of South Africans Callie and Monique Strydom and eight European hostages in late August. Seif al-Islam, who was a key figure in […]

Ntuthuko Maphumulo South Africa will be hosting the African Nations Women’s Cup finals on November 11 to 25, with games being played at Makhulong in Tembisa and Orlando stadium in Soweto. The tournament was first scheduled for October 14 to 28, but was changed by the South African Football Association (Safa) due to those dates’ […]

We’ve got the shocking stories to make a mother lode of cop dramas, Charl Blignaut discovered at a recent TV scriptwriting workshop It’s his third day in town and David Simons is still trying to get a handle on the newspaper headlines. “I look at your papers and see your crime stories …” says the […]

Andrew McUtchen She’s Benin’s only, and therefore, most successful afro-funk diva ever, an enthusiastic disciple of the Voodoo religion, and she’s not half determined to re-write the lyrics to James Brown’s evergreen soul classic It’s a Man’s World. Why? “Because it’s not. Men pretend to rule the world, but we do”. Meet the co-headline act […]

Simon Kuper For reasons too complex to explain, I have just spent a few weeks in Ghana. It proved an excellent place to watch two other West African countries, Cameroon and Nigeria, reach the quarterfinals of the Olympic tournament, with Cameroon going on to win the event on a penalty shoot-out against Spain. Most Ghanaians […]

Andrew Muchineripi soccer It has not been the greatest of years for Southern Africa countries when it came to bidding for football tournaments, with South Africa, Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe experiencing the pain of rejection. The most bitter blow came in July when Germany pipped South Africa 12-11 in controversial circumstances for the right to […]

RankCountryGold Gold equivGold equiv equivper millionper million people GNP adjust NoRankNoRankNo 1Bahamas1.7545.5716.37 2Bulgaria10.0171.2573.59 3Jamaica3.7321.2282.81 4Estonia1.7551.6652.25 5Cuba20.781.8832.08 6Romania18.0110.78201.92 7Latvia2.0461.00121.69 8Belarus8.6190.86171.59 9Azerbaijan2.3410.29371.47 10Hungary13.0131.3061.44 11Georgia2.0530.40311.41 12Ethiopia5.7270.09551.39 13Lithuania3.0380.75211.34 14Barbados0.3711.10101.26 15Moldova1.0590.25411.21 16Trinidad/Tobago1.0591.00121.14 17Kenya4.7290.17491.14 18Kazakstan5.7260.36330.91 19Mozambique1.0590.05640.89 20Slovakia3.3330.67220.84 21Armenia0.7680.17500.81 22Ukraine13.0140.26390.79 23Australia38.442.0220.76 24Slovenia2.0461.00120.64 25Russia60.020.41290.63 26Czech Rep5.0280.50250.50 27Quatar0.3710.55240.45 28Iceland0.3711.10100.45 29Greece9.0180.82180.45 30Norway7.0221.7540.45 Selected 60South Africa2.3410.06620.08 61United States66.610.25420.07

A permanent exhibition at Pretoria University is giving the public access to remains of this ancient civilisation Catarina Weinek The University of Pretoria is custodian of some of South Africa’s greatest cultural objects: the collection of items excavated since 1934 from the archaeological sites, Mapungubwe and K2, on a farm named Greefswald on the border […]

She’s been the queen of pop for the best part of 20 years. Without her, there would be no Britney Spears or Posh Spice. But why is Madonna, at 42, still churning out records? Julie Burchill First there’s that modish whining noise, like Eeyore having swallowed a synthesiser. Then the lumpen beat that affectionately passes […]