NONE of the violence and gang warfare I saw in my youth =20 in the Cape Flats prepared me for the carnage which =20 unfolded before my eyes in Thornton Road, Athlone, Cape =20 Town on a sunny Tuesday afternoon this week.=20 As I drove down Belgravia Road, Athlone, my eyes were =20 burning and […]

Theatre: David Le Page Watching the first minutes of The Choice (Civic Theatre) is like being steeped in a wash of pop- psychology epigrams. If Ray and Sal were actually people, they would have to memorise reams of material from women’s magazines and Readers’ Digest “10 Steps to a better Marriage/Relationship”-type articles to be able […]

Very brief.=20 — Frenchwoman Jeanne Calment , when asked — breaking =20 the world longevity record this week at 120 years and =20 238 days — how she sees the future=20 We were victims of technology.=20 — A BBC spokesperson on how a secret fax about =20 privatising the BBC was sent by accident to […]

IT wasn’t just the rain that George Smiley missed in =20 Johannesburg. It was also the knowledge that the spying =20 trade would never be the same again. =20 With his hands wrapped around a balloon glass of 10-=20 year-old KWV, and his body enveloped in the soft =20 cushions of a large leather armchair, […]

The Japanese could give us some pointers on how to =20 attract doctors to rural hospitals, writes David =20 MUCH attention has been given to alleviating the =20 chronic shortage of doctors for rural service both here =20 and elsewhere. The Department of National Health’s =20 drive towards the development of a health care system […]

Cinema: Justin Pearce It is irksome to use words like “charming” when describing a film — but in the case of Eat Drink Man Woman no other adjective quite suffices to sum up a movie which is at once so seductive and so hollow. As the yin-yang oppositions of its title suggest, this film by […]

Local telecommunication authorities can’t quite decide on their policies. Leon Perlman reports Virtually the entire ensemble of South African telecommunications Who’s Who assemble at Telecom 95, the International Telecommunications Union’s (ITU) seventh World Telecommunications Forum and exhibition. Curious strategy shifts in our telecommunications policy filtered through during the nine day event. Held at the massive […]

There are many talented claimants to the No 8 jersey in the Springbok team, but a specialist flanker has been selected to fill that position Rugby: Jon Swift WE HAVE reached the ridiculous situation in this country where we have five international players at eighthman: two of them discards, one on the bench, another back […]

Justin Pearce=20 South Africa’s failure to support an outright ban on =20 landmines brought it into direct opposition to =20 Mozambique at the United Nations conference on =20 landmines, which ended inconclusively in Vienna this =20 week. Mozambique is one of the countries worst affected =20 by landmines.=20 The conference is to reconvene in December […]

Eddie Koch=20 THE National Intelligence Agency (NIA) this week denied =20 media reports that its director general Sizakele =20 Whijmore Sigxashe threatened to shoot his wife and =20 children on Tuesday night and refused to hand over his =20 firearm to a police patrol that was called to the =20 scene. =20 An NIA press […]