Staff Reporter

HOWARD BARRELL, Johannesburg | Friday DEEP concern is spreading through the ruling African National Congress (ANC) and its parliamentary caucus over the corner into which President Thabo Mbeki has led the party and the government over HIV/Aids. Most ruling party MPs and senior ANC members approached this week privately said the HIV/Aids fiasco raised serious […]

AFP, Harare | Friday FOUR white farmers have been arrested on charges of “inciting violence” for allegedly convincing their black labourers to evict squatters from several farms south of Harare, the government daily reported. “The police will not tolerate any unlawful actions or disruptions of public order, such as new farm occupations,” The Herald quoted […]

AN Egyptian worker stabbed his employer to death, then ate his flesh and drank his blood in an old Cairo mosque after he was fired from his job renovating the holy site, police said. The 28-year-old worker was enraged at his 56-year-old employer for firing him after only a day’s work at Al-Kordi mosque and […]

FIRE has forced the plane of Togolese President Gnassingbe Eyadema to make an emergency landing at Niamey airport before being engulfed in flames, aviation authorities here said. Eyadema was not onboard, nor was any other Togolese dignitary. Ten people, including eight crew, were onboard, and two people were slightly injured in the incident. The aircraft […]

A SWISS judge investigating the transfer of hundreds of millions of dollars to Switzerland by the regime of the late Sani Abacha has questioned his son, Mohammed Abacha. Judge George Zecchin arrived in Nigeria and met Abacha after he was flown to Abuja from Lagos where he is currently detained on unrelated murder charges. A […]

IDA JACOBS, Washington | Saturday EASTERN Cape struggle hero Mkhuseli Jack has been honoured at the American premiere of a highly acclaimed documentary for his part in a peaceful boycott which the film makers say changed the course of South African history in the 20th century. Jack, who was specially flown to Washington DC for […]

SOUTH Africa has offered to hand over bank details of disgraced former cricket skipper Hansie Cronje to Delhi police investigating a match-fixing scandal, say officials. Shamilla Batohi, the chief prosecutor in the King Commission probing the Cronje affair, has also agreed to send details of telephone calls made by Cronje to bookies in India and […]

THE Pan Africanist Congress in the Western Cape is to hold a commemmoration service for Tempe military base killer Lieutenant Sibusiso Madubela, who last September shot dead eight white colleagues before he was killed. A PAC pamphlet advertising the event features a photograph of Madubela in uniform and concludes with the phrase: “One Oppressor, One […]

THE four accused in the Delmas incest case are to appear in court again today to face charges relating a 16-year relationship between a brother and sister. Robert Fedder, 40, and his 32-year old sister, Heibrecht Kamffer, were arrested in July for allegedly having had an incestuous relationship for the past 16 years. They have […]

CHARLES MANGWIRO, Quelimane | Friday THE number two leader in Mozambique’s powerful official opposition party, Renamo, has been axed for allegedly betraying party leader Afonso Dlhakama in return for financial reward from the ruling Frelimo party. Raul Domingos, Dlhakama’s right-hand man in Renamo, was formally expelled from the party by Renamo’s national council meeting in […]

BELINDA BERESFORD, Johannesburg | Friday IT’S a great mystery: why are South Africans, a group with a rich heritage of protest, not toyi-toying at the petrol pumps and causing chaos across the country, like the Europeans? After all, the British, renowned for their tolerance, have caused the Labour Party’s juggernaut to falter because of a […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT AND AFP, Durban | Saturday THE outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in the Kwazulu Natal Midlands – which has seen six countries imposing bans on South African meat and livestock – has spread to a neighbouring farm in spite of desperate efforts to contain the disease. A cow tested positive for the highly infectious […]

Jazz guitarist Jimmy Dludlu has come a long way since cutting his teeth with groups like Loading Zone and Mack Denite Thebe Mabanga There are many sides to Jimmy Dludlu. There is the stylish, celebrated jazz guitarist who strums his custom-made, semi-acoustic guitar to the delight of audiences on either side of the South African […]

Guilt by association chases the world’s fastest woman Duncan Mackay He is a big man and she a slender woman but somehow he always got lost in her shadow. CJ Hunter is the world shot put champion but most know him as the husband of Marion Jones. At the Olympics it was an association that […]

Broadcast rights might be changed by the new boxing Bill Deon Potgieter Section 29 of the new boxing Bill has caused a stir within the boxing fraternity. If passed, it could have major ramifications on the sport as we know it. Some say it would lead to the demise of boxing in South Africa. Others […]

Exit management is the government’s latest proposal to reduce the size of the public service.

Andy Capostagno rugby If there’s one thing that sportspeople hate it’s the playing of pointless matches. Which should help to explain the simmering discontent about the “new” Currie Cup system. Last week the Lions, the defending champions, put 96 points on the Northern Free State Griffons, a performance that earned them precisely nothing. The Griffons […]

The new chief executive is an ordained minister with strong struggle credentials and a passion for the game Merryman Kunene For an organisation founded on the principle of maximising the value of top soccer in South Africa, the Premier Soccer League (PSL) will be pleased with its progress judging by the kind of sponsorship value […]

Stephen Gray My sample of this year’s Aardklop festival – three shows and a literary caf’ event – was indeed modest. That I realised when, queueing outside yet another school-hall, I helped one frenzied audience member sort out his 53 Computicket printouts. And he was going to make only half the total events of the […]

Guy Willoughby theatre It may seem unfair to begin a review of a spanking new South African play by spanking new South African players by talking about their ‘minence grise – dramatist-cum-drama school mogul Deon Opperman – but Opperman, if not his prot’g’s, may appreciate the irony. Opperman’s response to the challenges of changing audience […]

UK Deon Potgieter boxing It’s not often that a fighter receives a unanimous vote in South Africa as being pound-for-pound the best in the land, but ask anybody in the local fight game the question and you’re bound to get the answer: Lehlo Ledwaba. Ledwaba, the International Boxing Federation (IBF) junior-featherweight world champion, makes the […]

Greg Bowes When legendary DJ Little Louie Vega played here last year he altered the country’s entire clubbing complexion with a steady stream of soulful, carnival grooves. As further evidence of the scope of Vega’s influence on global music culture, Latin house instantly became the sound of South Africa’s summer and continues to be popular […]

BRONWEN ROBERTS, Midrand | Friday IN its latest public disagreement with government, powerful labour federation Cosatu has threatened to launch a general nationwide strike if the government goes ahead with key changes to labour laws. The 1.8-million-member federation drew up a programme of action to fight the changes, which it says would undermine workers’ gains […]

Kenya Bob Woolmer >From the pavilion The first mini-World Cup Knockout was attempted in Bangladesh in 1998 to raise funds for the development of cricket throughout the world, and it proved to be a tremendous success. Capacity crowds watched some very exciting cricket. There is no doubt this latest competition, in Kenya, will be as […]

Neal Collins So now it’s official. Juan Antonio Samaranch closed the Games of the 27th Olympiad by telling the watching world: “These were the best Olympic Games ever. The last 16 days have been a glorious chapter in Australian history.” You can’t help but agree. Pity he couldn’t have tacked on a quick sentence about […]

Q&A Siyabonga Twala is the latest in a not-so- long line of South African male actors who openly harbour ambitions to make a name for themselves here, and more lucratively, abroad. This Umlazi, Durban native has had a taste of life abroad with his United States tour of Duma Ka Ndlovu’s Bergville Stories (1997). Apart […]

PETER DICKSON, Port Elizabeth | Friday HIV causes Aids – but death in most cases is from depression. That’s the opinion of Eastern Cape MEC for Health Dr Bevan Goqwana, who also believes circumcision and single-sex boarding schools to be at the cutting edge of prevention. Goqwana went public on his beliefs in Umtata last […]

Emma Brockes Body Language It is difficult to approach the subject of tantric sex with a straight face and an open mind when you have browsed the reading list of the SkyDancing Institute. SkyDancing, “an ancient metaphor for the ability to achieve ecstatic states”, is an organisation founded by Margot Anand, teacher of tantra and […]

Greg Bowes It’s rare that we get ace international hip-hop acts in town and when groups who incorporate these elements do visit, the reception has been less than lukewarm. Consider the plights of Anglo-Asian anarcho-noise makers Fun-Da-Mental and slick Arrested Development, who both dished out masterful, remarkable music to mediocre receptions in the Nineties. Eargasm […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT AND REUTERS, Paris | Friday THE son of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi has admitted that Tripoli paid $6m to Muslim rebels on the Philippine island of Jolo to secure the release of South Africans Callie and Monique Strydom and eight European hostages in late August. Seif al-Islam, who was a key figure in […]

The artist commissioned to create a sculpture of Gandhi hopes her statue will inspire all South Africans Anthea Garman Maria Smith Williams, the African-American sculptor who is to do a life-size bronze of Gandhi for the Durban parks department, was attracted to the project because the sculpture had to be of Mohandas Gandhi in his […]

David Basckin LIFESTYLE In the eternal debate about which came first, the chicken or the egg, let me tell you, brothers and sisters, that the truth is finally known. It was the chicken. And how do we know this? Through direct observation of the real world, the only universal path to truth. It happened like […]