Swapna Prabhakaran It is common knowledge that South Africa has one of the highest rates of road death in the world. Less well known, however, is that much of the carnage is caused by trucks and could be prevented if heavy freight vehicle regulations were brought into line with world safety standards. South Africa has […]

Andrew Worsdale : Movie of the week Joseph Ruben’s Return to Paradise is a remake of French director Pierre Jolivet’s Le Force Majeure (1989). The earlier version was not released on the local circuit, but some may have seen it at the French Film Festival in the early 1990s. The American remake is a gripping, […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Windhoek | Thursday 8.00pm. A BILL that will allow Namibian President Sam Nujoma to stand for a third term was approved by the second house of parliament on Thursday, and now only needs Nujoma’s own signature to become law. The controversial Namibian Constitution First Amendment Bill, passed in the National Council by 19 […]

They belong to women, but everywhere they are annexed – as a symbol of strength, as a symbol of weakness, by the artist, by the pornographer, by the advertiser, for sex, for nourishment. What is the significance of breasts? Libby Brooks reclaims the personal and the tactile from the political and the commercial At the […]

Chiara Carter The about-face of the state’s star witness in the embezzlement trial of anti-apartheid hero Allan Boesak might mean that the court has to grapple more with questions about “struggle accounting” and lax management than personal dishonesty. Until this week, former Foundation for Peace and Justice (FPJ) bookkeeper Freddie Steenkamp was the key accuser […]

Wonder Hlongwa A Jewish extremist group has threatened to “take action” against a Johannesburg Muslim family because of what a 14-year-old wrote in a history assignment. Last week, the Jewish Defence League (JDL) wrote a letter to Hassan Cassim, father of Layla, a grade eight pupil at Crawford College, demanding that she retract the contents […]

One of the more surreal themes to emerge from Zimbabwe in recent weeks was that of Democratic Republic of Congo President Laurent Kabila being escorted into Harare by a 28-vehicle convoy while helicopter gunships hovered overhead. His motorcade, sirens wailing, carefully avoided the townships where tear gas hung in the rubble-strewn streets after police and […]

Neil Tovey It would come as no surprise if many members of the local soccer media look rather rotund these days, given the huge weekly helpings of humble pie they have to digest. The man responsible for the unhealthy diet is Neil Tovey, former captain of the national team, holder of a record 52 international […]

Ferial Haffajee : A Second Look I wrote this while bound in leg braces – so steadfast was the determination not to be knee-jerk. It is, therefore, a much considered and chewed-upon view that the Human Rights Commission’s proposed inquiry into the media is the worst news possible. It is a view not coloured by […]

Shaun de Waal : First Person In last week’s First Person, the noted British feminist Joan Smith told us why women don’t cruise. But her answer seemed to have two parts: one explicit, one implicit. Danger, she said, is the main reason women don’t haunt parks and public toilets in search of sex. Underlying that, […]