Roy Collins : Soccer Jamaicas footballers, says Robbie Earle, have become the countrys biggest cult heroes since the bobsleigh team implausibly qualified for the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary. Instead of careering down a mountain Jamaicas football team are just as implausibly attempting to climb one. Their goal: to become the first Caribbean side to […]

Cape Verde star Cesaria Evora walked off with three Kora awards this year. Glynis OHara caught up with her at the KabaReunion festival Shes 56, shes large, shes a grandmother, she laughs easily and her face bears the lines of a life lived to the full. If you passed her in the street, youd never […]

Bridget Hilton-Barber : Unspoilt places There are some places, to coin a clich, where you walk through the door and feel instantly at home. As if youve returned to mommy or granny or a good, old friend. Places that are all hugs and warm fuzzies. Where strangers trepidation is immediately swept aside by the smells […]

Mukoni T Ratshitanga More than 7 000 Eastern Cape builders could be left jobless amid speculation that the provinces school-building contracts may be frozen by the provincial Department of Education. The department has not paid builders for work done last month on school construction. The amount owed builders for a single school project is estimated […]

V.Roger Prabasarkar : Cricket With South Africas seemingly good chances of victory disappearing as bloodily and painfully as a tooth extraction on the third day of the first Test in Rawalpindi, the team will be reflecting on a lost opportunity. Pakistan resumed a shortened second day on a precarious 216-6 and quickly subsided to 231-8 […]

Mail & Guardian reporter It is refreshing to meet a new young editor so certain of his target market. ?Why shouldn?t the black middle class have a platform through which they can articulate their aspirations?? says Vusi Mona, the 31- year-old editor designate of Tribute magazine. The glossy black magazine has always been an upmarket […]

Felleng Sekhas recent appointment as chair of the Independent Broadcasting Authority could give it direction. Ferial Haffajee interviews her Youre 29 years old. Are people fixated with your age? Ive just turned 30, actually. No, not really. The only time my age became an issue was in the media. What qualifies you for the hot-seat […]

Andy Duffy Relations between the National Party and the African National Congress in the Western Cape began to thaw in the office of Premier Hernus Kriel this week. The provincial NP leader met Ebrahim Rasool, leader of the ANC in the provincial legislature, on Tuesday and, among other issues, discussed ways of preventing the ANCs […]

The labour department is determined to meet the jobs challenge, despite battles over strategy, Sipho Pityana tells Madeleine Wackernagel On a hot Friday afternoon in Pretoria most civil servants would be itching to escape for the weekend, but not Sipho Pityana. Cool in his air-conditioned office, the director general of labour was in no hurry […]

Paul Wilson : Soccer Glenn Hoddle believes a result in Rome on Saturday will confirm the impression of the last couple of years at international level and the last couple of weeks in club competitions that English football is beginning to be respected throughout Europe. I think something has grown over the last two years, […]