Theatre: Chris Roper When you take your seat under the sky for the opening scene of As You Like It, this year’s offering at Maynardville, you can’t help but be intrigued. On stage is an aerobics floor, three exercise cycles, a juice bar, and Health and Racquet Club and Reebok flags fluttering in the Cape […]

Trainspotting made Irvine Welsh cool with its portrayal of drug-fuelled Scottish low-life. But don’t mistake the creator for his characters: he’s had a job in local government and even deals in property. Can he hack it as a novelist, though? Critics say his new book may be his last chance to prove himself. By Andy […]

SUSPECTED thieves blew up a signal box on the railway line between Germiston South and Germiston West stations on Wednesday afternoon at 3.30pm. The explosion is the latest in a series, usually set by miscreants planning to raid stopped goods trains, the Germiston police said. Nobody was injured in the explosion, opposite a school and […]

SOCCER players of the Zambian national women’s squad blamed their coaches on Wednesday for their 15-0 defeat by South Africa in Swaziland. They claimed the coaches were more interested in sex than soccer. One of the players said that some male coaches demanded sexual favours in return for a place in the women’s national team. […]

SOUTH Africa and Denmark will play a soccer friendly on April 28 in Copenhagen in a World Cup rematch, the South African Football Association announced in Johannesburg on Thursday. The teams drew 1-1 in a World Cup group match in France. South Africa has not beaten a European team in nine attempts, despite several agonising […]

EIGHTEEN members of Zanzibar’s main opposition party will go on trial for high treason on Friday, facing execution or life in jail if convicted, after more than a year in detention. The Civic United Front members are charged with conspiracy to overthrow the government of President Salmin Amour which rules the twin semi-autonomous Tanzanian islands […]

A STRONG contingent of South Africa’s top athletes and several international stars will compete in the first of the 1999 Absa series prestige meetings in Bloemfontein on January 23. A showdown is expected between Africa’s number one discus thrower and 1998 Commonwealth Games silver medallist, Free Stater Frantz Kruger, and Aleksandr Borichevsky, the Russian champion. […]

THE NATIONAL Minister of Health, Dr Nkosazana Zuma, has appointed a task team to investigate the organization of a national health laboratory service. The team will integrate the teaching, training and research activities currently associated with various pathology laboratories.

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Abidjan | Thursday 11.15pm. A SENIOR rebel commander in Sierra Leone said on Thursday that he has agreed to a temporary ceasefire to halt hostilities in the capital Freetown. Rebels of the Revolutionary United Front invaded the city last week, and have since been fighting Nigerian intervention troops of the regional Ecomog force. […]

A STONE-age site about 10000 years old has been discovered in Midrand near the Jukskei Valley, the Midrand Metropolitan Local Council announced on Thursday. The discovery was made with the help of Professor Revil Mason, retired head of the archaeology research unit at the Witwatersrand University. “This is the first time ever that a constructed […]