Andrew MuchineripiSoccer The African Cup of Nations quarter-finals showdown between South Africa and Ghana in Kumasi on Sunday brings together teams that can only improve after disastrous endings to their mini-league programmes. I have never been more ashamed of wearing Bafana Bafana colours than in midweek, when even a first-minute goal from Shaun Bartlett could […]

CD of the week One of Johannesburg’s most happening clubs, always packed to capacity, is 206, with its ever-impressive line-up of top musicians on the stage and talented DJs spinning the best acid jazz, drum’n’bass, jungle and the like. Now you can take the party home with the excellent album 206 Mix (Virgin), with its […]

Fiona Macleod Mpumalanga province declared its first internationally protected wetlands on World Wetlands Day on Wednesday. The Verloren Vallei Nature Reserve, 10km north of Dullstroom, is the province’s first proposed Ramsar site. This means it will be recognised internationally as a wetland system of importance, and will be protected against degradation and development. “We started […]

Fiona Macleod Controversial wildlife dealer Riccardo Ghiazza was arrested this week on charges of fraud and falsely obtaining South African citizenship. Ghiazza (46), the man at the centre of the Tuli elephant furore, appeared briefly in the Pretoria Magistrate’s Court on Wednesday for allegedly failing to declare he had a drug conviction in Italy when […]

Fiona Macleod The Medical Research Council (MRC) is setting up a new primate unit at Delft in the Western Cape to breed baboons for medical research. The council says it is no longer internationally acceptable to use primates caught in the wild for experimentation, and it is setting up the new unit for “scientific and […]

Peter Dickson Eastern Cape sangoma and self-styled direct royal descendant and chief Nicholas Tilana Gcaleka, who hit world headlines four years ago with his British hunt for the head of 19th-century Xhosa King Hintsa, has taken legal action to retrieve the skull from the University of Cape Town (UCT). But the UCT forensic medicine department’s […]

Jubie Matlou The African National Congress intends to kill the South African National Civics Organisation (Sanco) and take over civic politics as part of its drive to put its stamp on all levels of political life in South Africa. The ANC wants its branches to take up civic issues at local level in a bid […]

Marthali Brand It was to be the soap opera of operas in the capital of rugby, braaivleis en sonneskyn. And Madame Butterfly, at Loftus Versfeld “under summer skies”, lived up to all the hype. And Pretoria turned out with gusto – only a few unclaimed seats were to be found on the field. Even some […]

Paul Kirk A week after Zulu chiefs met President Thabo Mbeki to ask for the proposed new changes in municipal demarcations to be put on hold, the King of the Pondos, Justice Mpondombini Sigcau, has called for “no changes” in the municipal demarcations in his area. Pondoland has seen exceptionally bloody faction fighting, and the […]

Barry Streek Minister of Labour Membathisi Mdladlana is to announce details of a major investigation into South Africa’s labour laws after President Thabo Mbeki’s opening speech to Parliament on Friday. The inquiry, to be conducted by legal experts, is unlikely to entail significant changes to the labour legislation adopted by Parliament since 1994. Its main […]