Ann Eveleth AS proceedings got underway in the Malan trial Judge Jan Hugo’s eyes crinkled and his grey bearded face lit up with a jovial smile as he broke the ice to share a joke with Attorney General Tim McNally. Agreeing to postpone the trial to give the seven defence teams more time to consult […]

SWIMMING: Julian Drew JUST after 10 o’clock on Wednesday morning in Durban the rain was sheeting down outside the King’s Park swimming pool. It had been raining hard all morning and the start of the day’s proceedings at the South African national aquatics championships was delayed by half an hour to allow competitors and officials […]

Sugarboy Malinga has always had the talent to make it to the top, but circumstances always contrived to prevent him meeting his destiny — until last weekend BOXING: Gavin Evans THERE are times in the self-contained little universe of prize fighting when the whole thing seems no better than a crass charade; and then there […]

The trial of General Magnus Malan and the 19 other accused has has exposed the methods of the previous government’s State Security Council during the turbulent 1980s. Mangosuthu Buthelezi was seen as a puppet by the State Security Council in its covert battle against the ANC. Eddie Koch and Ann Eveleth report TOP-SECRET government documents […]

It took former hired killers to catch the hired killers of Zahida Sabadia, reports Stefaans Brummer A week after student doctor Zahida Sabadia disappeared, half a rugby team’s worth of heavies in four cars and a van with Telkom markings, hung around the mansion in Ruslouw where the mother-of-three had lived with her husband, psychiatrist […]

Justin Pearce The Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) has not requested a meeting with President Nelson Mandela, and the organisation’s Palestinian chapter has no plans to send a delegation to South Africa. Although Mandela has said he would be willing to meet Hamas representatives if they were to visit South Africa, his representative Parks Mankahlana said […]

As the ASA is stripped of yet another duty, rows among ad agencies continue, reports Jacquie Golding-Duffy Conflict concerning comparative advertising continues to brew in the ad industry. This follows the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) demand for the withdrawal of a recent BMW advertisement. The advertisement, a product of the agency Hunt Lascaris TBWA, was […]

CINEMA: Digby Ricci ALTHOUGH, like her most captivating heroine Elizabeth Bennet, Jane Austen never ridicules “what is wise or good”, there is nothing cosily consoling about this most clear- sighted of satirists. With a moral aversion rendered all the more devastating by what Rebecca West called “the lattice-work of her neat sentences”, Austen excoriates a […]

We consulted some doctors about Nelson Mandela’s health. They say it’s excellent for his age Rehana Rossouw It’s hard to regard a man who jets across a continent and back in three days, gets to bed after 1am, then chirps energetically at the media seven hours later, as a geriatric. But at 77 years and […]

wall Madeleine Wackernagel Opinion is swinging away from an increase in value-added tax (VAT) in next week’s Budget, as the cost in terms of inflation and labour relations is deemed too high. Instead, Finance Minister Chris Liebenberg is expected to go ahead with the Katz commission proposals to tax the retirement funds, despite strong opposition […]