Deon Potgieter in Copenhagen Denmark has fewer boxers than South Africa and certainly fewer world champions, but they have a positive attitude towards the noble art, which is sorely lacking in the southern tip of Africa. In fact local boxers travelling to Copenhagen may find that they have larger appeal in the Danish capital than […]
JIM SLATER, Landover | Friday 3.30pm. NIGERIAN coach Ismaila Mabo ripped FIFA and Colombian referee Martha Toro Pardo and after an 87th-minute ejection contributed to the Super Falcons’ quarter-final ouster. Brazil’s Sissi scored a “golden goal” on a free kick in the 104th minute of over-time for a dramatic 4-3 triumph over a 10-woman Nigerian […]
East Rand Proprietary Mines is in danger of becoming the first South African mine to be buried by this year’s collapse in the gold price, writes Mungo Soggot For more than a century, Johannesburg’s deepest mine has been home to two communities locked in distrust – a distrust they seem destined to share until the […]
William Fotheringham Cycling When it starts on Saturday in the Vende, this will be the Tour de France of crossed fingers, murmured prayers and nervous glances over Lycra-clad shoulders. For there was no precedent for last year’s disastrous, scandal-stricken Tour. This year’s race has been billed as “the Tour of reconstruction”, but events took on […]
Friday night Alex Sudheim Its a dry, flinty wind that blows across the plains and greets me like a John Wayne handshake as I step off the stagecoach and pat the prairie dust from my jeans. The bare-boned bite of the air is advance warning that this place takes no prisoners, so I square my […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Friday 2.45pm. BAFANA Bafana will be delighted to know that key Namibian defender Mohamed Auseb will not be playing in the two countries’ Cosafa Castle Cup quarterfinal in Windhoek on July 31. Auseb is under suspension after picking up two bookings in Cup matches against Lesotho and Malawi. Namibia will surely […]
At a tiny settlement in the centre of Botswana’s Central Kalahari Game Reserve, a small village is fighting a rearguard battle against removal from their land. These are the bittereinders, among the last of the first people of Southern Africa. Photographer Paul Weinberg and writer Tony Weaver report Author’s note: I freely interchange the words […]
Ivor Powell While talks in Lusaka aimed at securing a ceasefire in the Democratic Republic of Congo continue to stutter, the war is intensifying in the diamond-rich area around Mbuji Mayi. Congolese forces are reportedly under heavy attack in the town of Kabinda, 100km to the east of the diamond capital, Mbuji Mayi. They are […]
assault Luvuyo Kakaza A human rights radio producer, Toto Futa, has laid charges against the sheriff of the Soweto West court after he was brutally assaulted last week. Futa says the sheriff was sent to confiscate goods from his home on the grounds that payments for municipal services was in arrears. He says he was […]
POLICE have found evidence of ghost writers in 4000 papers from last year’s scandal-hit Mpumalanga matric exams. Police spokesman Senior Superintendent Faizel Abdul-Kader on Thursday said it meant that at least two handwriting styles showed up in each of the papers. If the normal rules were applied this would have been impossible. Abdul-Kader said police […]
Peter Dickson This week’s launch of the 16th Jeffrey’s Bay Classic, one of the world’s great surfing events, bellyflopped in a small town holy war. Organisers Billabong decided to showcase South African traditional culture before an international television audience, and invited Xhosa traditional healers to bless the sea in an ancient ceremony before the top […]
Cameron Duodu Letter from the North I wonder whether Congolese politicians realise the impatience and irritation with which the rest of us in Africa look on as they squabble over the terms of the peace agreement that could give their country a chance to recover from the ravages of Mobutu Sese Seko’s kleptocratic rule? Don’t […]
Alison Whelan Body Language Celibacy was a subject I would giggle and snigger at. It was for people who were too ugly or too weird to get sex anyway. So it is with more than a little humility that I admit to having committed myself to a six- month celibacy contract, with an option to […]
Chris Dunton ALF KUMALO: SOUTH AFRICAN PHOTOGRAPHER edited by Itala Vivan (Leonardo Arte) This beautifully designed and printed album reproduces around 150 of Alf Kumalo’s photos, ranging from his work in the 1950s as a Drum staffer to photos of the 1990s. Four decades worth of some of the most striking photo-reportage produced in South […]
John Matshikiza With The Lid Off Far be it from me to be critical of the way other newspapers operate, but, speaking as a simple citizen for a moment, I have to say I get frustrated at the lack of proper background and follow-up in many of the stories we are fed. If you don’t […]
Wonder Hlongwa The recent spate of deaths among young people in Highflats, KwaZulu-Natal, believed to be caused by Aids, has prompted the formation of a youth self-help group whose aim is to spearhead an Aids awareness campaign in the area. Situated between the South Coast and Natal Midlands, Highflats is one of the poorest and […]
Anthony Egan MEMORY AGAINST FORGETTING by Rusty Bernstein (Viking ) Struggle autobiographies are becoming increasingly common – so common that one wonders if there is anything new to be said. The first chapter of this new book, however, dispels such fears. Lionel “Rusty” Bernstein’s autobiography is well-written and it contains a load of new and […]
Ken Daniels Horse-racing This year’s Rothmans July seemed to have fallen flat when the horse racing fraternity’s VIP decided not to come to the party. But the event may still be saved by a surprise guest who slipped in the back door at the last minute. Horse wonder Horse Chestnut was just threatening to capture […]
Gavin Evans looks at the boxing future of Cornelius Sanders Cornelius Johannes Sanders, heavyweight king of South Africa and the parochial little universe of the World Boxing Union (WBU), is about to become a British product. As he explained it to me: “I’ve fought in the United Kingdom six times and I’ve had a great […]
Barry Streek The leading role of development in South Africa has to lie with the state, not with the private sector, African National Congress MP Ben Turok has written in a new book. The ANC had always assumed that a strong state apparatus would be required to establish a democratic system and that “the state […]
Matthew Krouse Down the tube Wet and worldly in the dreariest season. That’s the promise of M-Net’s winter line- up. There’s nothing local or of over- arching relevance on the pay channel in July – not that it’s criminal to propose ideology-free programming. On the contrary. When one watches television a lot, one eventually tires […]
Alex Dodd Sitting on Church Square sipping hot chocolate in the winter sunlight, you’d be forgiven for imagining for a moment that you were at a caf in Europe, and that’s probably why the French Institute has chosen the grand historic square as the spot to host its Bastille Day celebrations. In collaboration with the […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Canberra | Thursday 4.30pm. RUGBY union superstar Jonah Lomu on Thursday dismissed suggestions he could be tempted to switch codes if he continues to be overlooked by the New Zealand All Blacks. Melbourne Storm rugby league side plan to cast their eye over Lomu when the New Zealand A side plays the Australian […]
THE two men accused of the 1988 Lockerbie bombing on Wednesday failed in their effort to persuade judges that a newspaper article was in danger of prejudicing their forthcoming trial. Lawyers acting for Abdel Basset Ali Mohamed al-Megrahi and al-Amin Khalifa Fhimah had argued that a front page story in the Sunday Times a month […]
ZIMBABWEAN Vice-President Joshua Nkomo died on Thursday morning, state media report. State radio and Ziana news agency reported that the 83-year-old died in the early hours of Thursday at the Parirenyatwa hospital in Harare, where he was admitted several weeks ago suffering from prostate cancer.
A JOHANNESBURG High Court judge on Wednesday dismissed an application for an urgent interim interdict by two former Civil Co-operation Bureau agents who wanted the book “Dangerous Deceits” banned from being distributed or sold because it contained “defamatory” passages. The book, written by Frank Welsh and published both in South Africa and abroad, implicated the […]
MINING company Consolidated African Mines (CAM) Wednesday reported an attributable profit of R132,5 million for the past financial year. This came after a loss of R178,6 million for the nine months to March 1998, the company said in a statement. CAM owns 64% of JCI Gold and has shares in the prominent Western Areas and […]
WEDNESDAY, 12.30PM: CLIVE WOODWARD, coach of the English rugby side that arrived in South Africa on Monday for a one-off Test against the Springboks at Newlands on Saturday, has lashed out at “the thickheads” who organised the ill-fated English tour of the Southern Hemisphere. Woodward said his team will have time for only two training […]
WEDNESDAY, 12.30PM: THE winelands of the Cape will play host to the European golf tour for the first time when the 1999 Mercedes-Benz Vodacom SA Open is staged at Stellenbosch Golf Club. The South African Open forms part of the European Tour and will see world number two Ernie Els defending his home title, an […]
THE Tanzanian government is looking for potential buyers worldwide of the state-owned Tanzania Telecommunications Company Limited, PSRC (privatisation authority) Executive Chairman John Rubambe declared in Dar es Salaam on Tuesday. The TTCL currently has only 127000 lines connecting its customers and has been offering telephone services to about 2% of Tanzanian families, he stated. He […]
SHARON HAMMOND, Nelspruit | Thursday 2.45pm. MOZAMBIQUE will lift its ban on elephant hunting in the next month and start selling off 1,8 tonnes of ivory seized from poachers. The ban was introduced in 1990 after the government signed the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species. The convention was amended this year to […]
HISTORY will be made on Thursday when Gill Marcus takes over as deputy governor of the Reserve Bank. Marcus will be the first woman in the country to occupy such a post within the bank. She succeeds Chris de Swardt who retired on Wednesday. She is reluctant to comment on any future policy shifts: “In […]