RUGBY: Frankie Deges IT WAS as a result of the vision of a handful of=20 administrators from Argentina, New Zealand, Australia=20 and South Africa (ANZASA) that the inaugural Under-21=20 southern hemisphere tournament was born. Argentina, the instigator of the idea, was given the=20 go-ahead to stage the first event and, midway through=20 it, the concept […]

Anne Eveleth A northern KwaZulu/Natal Crime Intelligence Service officer admitted knowledge of Stratcom (Strategic Communications) under oath in the Ladysmith Regional Court this week. Ladysmith CIS commander Colonel Rowan Hendricks was testifying under cross-examination by defence attorney Colin Heads in the trial of five right wingers alleged to have plotted to poison water supplies in […]

Gaye Davis JUST two years ago, the very idea of a Socialist International (SI) meeting in South Africa would have been inconceivable — so this week’s two-day meeting in Cape Town of the council of the world federation of social democratic, socialist and labour movements in Cape Town was richly symbolic. That it took place […]

Eddie Koch reports on a commission of inquiry into witchcraft killings in the Northern Province CASE 1: Tshavhungwe approached Edward and asked him to find a living person from whom they could remove some parts. A friend of Edward’s suggested they should get one Nthatheni Negota (a young woman in her twenties), who used to […]

CINEMA: Digby Ricci ‘THE pictures painted on the inner eyelids of infants … are not in=20 paste,” Edna St Vincent Millay memorably understates in her=20 poem Intense and Terrible, I Think, Must Be the Loneliness of=20 Infants, and the most impressive achievement of Peter Jackson’s=20 remarkable Heavenly Creatures is the union of frenzy,=20 sensuousness, picturebook […]

Marion Edmunds DEPUTY PRESIDENT Thabo Mbeki is considering a plan to grant so-called ” professionals” — doctors, prosecutors and accountants — better salaries and a measure of independence from the public service bargaining chamber. The plan was put on the table this week by the Medical Association of South Africa (Masa) in a bid to […]

Jean-Pierre Rossouw MOVEABLE FEAST IT seems there’s a rule that applies to seafood when you move=20 away from the coast: the emphasis is no longer on the fish. At the=20 Cape coast, seafood generally refers to those swimming things=20 restaurants call linefish. Perhaps it has something to do with the=20 fact that crawling things need […]

After years of silence, archetypal Gothic band The Mission is=20 alive, well — and playing in Johannesburg. FRED DE VRIES=20 THE Mission’s singer/guitarist, Wayne Hussey, has a reputation=20 for being loud and pretentious. His lyrics always used to be full of=20 quasi-religious symbolism; his music often fell on the wrong side=20 of pomp. And in […]

Justin Pearce in Grahamstown National Festival of the Arts: With more events on offer than=20 anyone could hope to attend, the Grahamstown festival becomes=20 whatever its thousands of visitors want it to be CULTURE is still a weapon of struggle. At least, the Wimpy=20 workers seemed to think so when they drew attention to their=20 […]

The Mark Gevisser Profile: Inkatha Freedom Party MP Farouk Cassim Farouk Cassim has literary aspirations for himself and his hometown. We sit in his bougainvillea-clad and rambling flat above his father-in-law’s dry-cleaning business on Stanger’s main road. The muezzin from the mosque next door blares, intermittently, as we eat the exquisite bread he bakes each […]