Loud music eased the tension for Jean-Jacques Terblanche before his big race in Atlanta, and it inspired him to win gold, writes Julian Drew PARALYMPIC champion Jean-Jacques Terblanche is not an athlete who succumbs to big match nerves. As he sat in the call-up room waiting for his 200m individual medley final at the Georgia […]

Jane Cortez and her band blend music and words. GWEN ANSELL interviewed them at the Arts Alive festival So what’s a “jazz poet”? Some bearded dude in shades spewing Kerouac sentiments in a cellar while a cool vibraphone tinkles? Some other bearded, shaded-and- dashiki-wearing dude declaiming angrily in a loft while a hot saxophone wails? […]

Marion Edmunds The Constitutional Court wants to make it more difficult for the Constitution to be changed by a strong ruling party. Parliament’s power to write and re-write the Constitution has been a controversial point in negotiations between political parties since Codesa, when talks broke down over the dispute between the African National Congress and […]

Mail & Guardian Reporters In the week the Constitutional Court made legal precedent by passing judgment on two constitutions, it also set a grammatical precedent which had some of the press temporarily baffled. Announcing its decision on the certification of the KwaZulu-Natal Constitution to the public gallery, the court appeared to pioneer the concept of […]

Lottery operators should not be allowed to cream off the profits, Richard Branson tells Madeleine Wackernagel Richard Branson is a firm believer in capitalism, but with one exception — a national lottery. The British entrepreneur, in Johannesburg last week to garner publicity for the inaugural flight of Virgin Airlines, was adamant that South Africa should […]

Fay Davids Linda Adams of Corporate Childcare leads the pack in lobbying for the provision of childcare at work. She’s knocked at the doors of this country’s major corporations to get them to start creches. Her perseverance is paying off. “More companies are requesting feasibility studies.” The Liberty Life creche is one of three that […]

Angella Johnson Police say they are beginning to make significant inroads in the fight against organised crime, following the arrest of a seven-man gang in connection with the manufacture of mandrax tablets. The men, including a British chemist, were nabbed last Monday after a month-long police surveillance operation in Lichtenberg unearthed a major drug- making […]

Censorship may be at an end in South Africa, but can the public accept the ramifications of this freedom? Katy Bauer reports ON Monday this week the Broadcasting Complaints Commission of South Africa (BCCSA) heard two submissions from the public which challenged the South African Broadcasting Corporation’s revolutionary broadcasting of controversial gender material. What linked […]

Lynda Loxton The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) this week gave notice that it was losing patience with the way the African National Congress-led government, in its rush to attract foreign investment, was failing to consult its old alliance partners. General Secretary Sam Shilowa told the parliamentary finance committee that it was “unacceptable” […]