Julian Drew : Skiing Alex Heath, South Africa’s representative in Alpine skiing at the Winter Olympics starting on Saturday, is not your ordinary sort of guy. In November 1996 he suffered a fractured skull and brain haemorrhage that put him in a coma for 18 hours after a fall from the climbing wall in the […]

Andrew Worsdale Domestic war film of the week In 1973 director Ang Lee (The Wedding Banquet, Eat Drink Man Woman and Sense and Sensibility) hadn’t set foot in the United States and couldn’t speak English. So it’s deeply paradoxical that he has directed a perceptive, poignant and sharp movie about the US during the era […]

Maria McCloy The management of national music chain Musica and the advertising agency Jupiter Drawing Room are surprised by the “extreme” reaction to a Valentine’s Day poster campaign that went up on Friday January 23 and was torn down by Monday January 26. Four naked couples in loving embraces, each accompanied by appropriate words from […]

Belinda Beresford Guardian of the rand and watchdog of inflation, the Reserve Bank probably has as much impact on every South African’s finances as anything the government does. But, unlike Nelson Mandela, the bank is not national property. Unlike most of its counterparts across the globe, South Africa’s central bank is a private company which […]

John Grobler In what amounts to an inquest into an inquest, the second judicial investigation into the Anton Lubowski assassination opens on Monday in the Windhoek High Court with what appears to be very little new evidence, a lack of political will to solve the murder and a vote of no confidence from the Lubowski […]

Andy Duffy African National Congress Western Cape leader Dullah Omar will resign this weekend, opening the door to a lively succession race and the possible dissolution of the party’s entire provincial leadership structure. The first public skirmish in the battle to fill Omar’s shoes broke out this week in two of the party’s most powerful […]

Charl Blignaut On stage in Johannesburg Three-quarters of the way through Kere Nyawo’s gritty prison comedy Hola Majita, a young male prisoner is forced to don a frock and perform the duties of a whore. Where is all this leading, I wonder. Another quaint, stereotypical comic device pretending to be something more than a handy […]

Peter Mabena A middle-aged man who is suspected of being the Orange Farm serial killer has been apprehended by a group of pupils from the Nomini Primary School. The man was seen walking down the street towards the bushes with three children from the school on January 30. The principal became suspicious and ordered other […]

More needs to be done to help local governments overcome their financial crises, writes Caroline Kihato The financial crisis that afflicts local government needs to be resolved. Local government is regarded as pivotal to development in South Africa as the majority of the population depend on it for the delivery of much-needed social services. By […]

GROUP A (Ouagadougou) Feb 7: Burkina Faso v Cameroon; Feb 8: Algeria v Guinea; Feb 11: Cameroon v Guinea, Burkina Faso v Algeria; Feb 15: Burkina Faso v Guinea, Algeria v Cameroon GROUP B (Ouagadougou) Feb 9: Democratic Republic of Congo v Togo, Ghana v Tunisia; Feb 12: DR Congo v Tunisia, Ghana v Togo; […]