Two South Africans set off this week in the gruelling eight-month, 27 000-mile BOC Challenge SAILING: Jonathan Spencer Jones AFTER months — and in some cases, years — of preparation, the fourth BOC Challenge single-handed around the world race got under way in Charleston, USA, last weekend with a rousing sendoff from some 2 000 […]

Weekly Mail Reporter THE abortion debate looks set to start all over again with the appointment this month of a parliamentary committee that is likely to have the pro-choice and anti-abortion lobbies fighting it out. The 26-member committee, which will hear submissions from the public before recommending legislation to the cabinet, represents a wide spectrum […]

Justin Pearce WHEN Sister Clara Williams asked two unauthorised visitors to leave the hospital ward, they pressed a knife against her stomach. Dr Hennie Steenkamp has been assaulted four times while treating injured patients. And hospital volunteer Simon Jacobs was stabbed with a pair of scissors when he tried to stop a fight between two […]

COME Not everybody who wants to see the Currie Cup final will be able to do so in Bloemfontein and that’s how its going to be at the World Cup too RUGBY: Jon Swift FREE State’s insistence on holding the Currie Cup final at Springbok Park in Bloemfontein should the uncertainties of this weekend’s provincial […]

British prime minister John Major led a host of international sports stars and the media around township sports facilities, writes Paul Martin WITH Wednesday’s rival attractions conveniently divided by that compulsory cricket tradition, the lunch-break, cognoscenti had the mouth-watering prospect of admiring the 12 or so balls Brian Lara stroked in the Soweto nets after […]

What has happened to Penny Siopis, painter of lush excess? Hazel Friedman asked her whether she has `gone conceptual’ REACTIONS to Penny Siopis’ current exhibition range from slight discomfort to outright dismay. Maybe it’s got something to do with the cloying smell of mothballs and cheap perfume wafting from her sarcophagus-like installations; the neatly arranged […]

Gaye Davis JOHANNESBURG City Council is owed more than R44-million by residents of its south-western townships and Lenasia. If the debt is not written off by central government, it will almost double the council’s accumulated operating deficit of R54,7-million. Roger McCulloch, assistant general secretary of the Civic Associations of Johannesburg (CAJ), blames a National Party […]

Lesley Cowling and Chris Louw QUESTIONS about the state’s funding of General Lothar Neethling’s defamation case against the Weekly Mail & Guardian are to be raised in parliament. ANC MP Dave Dalling has given notice that he wants Minister of Safety and Security Sidney Mufamadi to reveal the total cost to the state of Neethling’s […]

THE Storyland Carnival — part of the Arts Alive festivities — offers a golden opportunity to keep the children busy and entertained for a day. A host of thrilling events will take place, from an appearance by the popular Capetonian rap group Prophets of da City to participation in a crafts workshop — plus a […]

ENGLAND and Wales are likely to make a joint bid to stage the 1999 World Cup. This week Dudley Wood, the Rugby Football Union secretary, said his union would be considering a formal bid along with the Welsh Rugby Union, though so far neither union has discussed the matter at executive committee level. Wood believes […]