MONDAY, 11.30AM: THE Northern Bulls, after a pedestrian start to this year’s Super-12 competition, belied their bottom-of-the-table status to humble New South Wales 34-19 at the Jan van Riebeeck Stadium in Witbank on Saturday. The Bulls outplayed the Waratahs in the tight, driving strongly and supporting closely at the breakdown. By no means a pretty […]
MONDAY, 12.15PM: ITALIAN bidder Aeroporti Di Roma became the unexpected strategic equity partner of the Airports Company of South Africa when it paid R819-million for a 20% stake in the local airport management on Friday. Commentators believe ADR paid 40% more than rival bidders Britain’s Airports Authority (BAA), Amsterdam Airport Schipol, and a joint bid […]
MONDAY, 2.00PM: THE organisers of the glamorous MTN Classic women’s tennis tournament are in hot water after accusations from the South African Tennis Association that the tournament could place the game it is trying to boost in serious jeopardy. Sata chairman Gordon Forbes criticised the event for causing the withdrawal of SA top seed and […]
Richard Williams: Movie of the week When Wim Wenders points to the change in the nature of violence in the mainstream cinema, he is stating the obvious. He says he made The End of Violence to get us thinking about how explicitly gruesome sights that would have been unthinkable 10 years ago appear to be […]
The Robert McBride saga has been presented as an “embarrassment” for the South African government. As time goes by it is becoming apparent that it is far more significant than that. It seems to mask a major threat to national security and McBride is seem ingly not the culprit. For those familiar with the activities […]
‘Ma’am,” said John Edas with a dramatic pause, “motor racing is lily white. At Motor Sport South Africa there is only one person of colour – and that’s me.” The members of the parliamentary committee on sport and recreation looked on grimly as they pondered the difficulties of making motor racing a sport befitting the […]
FRIDAY, 9.00AM: THE North-West provincial government decided on Thursday to close Vryburg High School, scene of racial clashes between black and white pupils and parents. The scholl is effectively being closed early for the Easter holidays, which were to begin on April 1. Said David van Wyk, spokesman for North-West Premier Popo Molefe: “It was […]
Brett Davidson William Smith’s Learning Channel on SABC3 is probably one of the best-known educational programmes on television and one of the most controversial among educators. In its early days on TV, Smith’s channel incorporated hundreds of hours of recorded material, aimed at enlivening the learning experience, and helping students see the relevance of what […]
Mungo Soggot The Pretoria High Court has slapped a temporary interdict on Klerksdorp police who allegedly beat and tortured a robbery suspect. Eric Tshabalala, who has been awaiting trial since his arrest in January, says he was beaten and tortured with electric shocks. His lawyers from the Wits University Law Clinic say he has visible […]
Sylvia Brownrigg THE COLLECTED STORIES by Paul Theroux (Penguin, R54,95) Paul Theroux will go anywhere. He will willingly explore the blighted territory of a failing marriage; the tangled jungle of a mad poet’s secret anti-Semitism; the belated sexual guilt of a Hindu. In this great slab of his short fiction, Theroux is bolde r than […]