Staff Reporter

CD of the week: Adam Sweeting Thirty-two years after it was recorded, Live 1966: The Royal Albert Hall (Columbia), the official release of this remarkable live performance arrives in a transformed world, albeit one that has long acknowledged it as some of Bob Dylan’s most awesome music. (The gig took place at the Manchester Trade […]

Lesotho Sechaba ka’Nkosi The opposition Basotholand Congress Party (BCP) in Lesotho is deeply divided with some members attempting to oust its president, Molapo Qhobela. They want to replace him with executive member Deborah Khaulelo Raditapole, who is being touted by some in the opposition alliance as Lesotho’s future first woman prime minister. The party offered […]

The appointment of Ramesh Vassen as consul general to Delhi could well be a turning point in the way our government handles corruption. Here we have a man with a criminal conviction – confirmed by the highest court in the land – a man who stole money, a man who was expelled from his own […]

THE New National Party’s legal challenge against a requirement that voters possess bar-coded identity documents in order to register began on Friday morning before a full bench of the Cape High Court. NNP legal adviser Andre Gaum said on Thursday that whatever the outcome, the matter is expected to be referred to the Constitutional Court […]

and a hard place David Lacey Soccer Tottenham Hotspur fans used to believe Glenn Hoddle walked on water. Unfortunately he shared that belief which is why, as England coach, he has suddenly vanished at the deep end. The feeling with which Hoddle apologised this week for any offence he had caused disabled people was heartfelt, […]

to die for Evidence wa ka Ngobeni Vista University’s final 1998 examination results improved dramatically – and some lecturers admit this was after they received death threats from students. Lectures at the university’s five campuses were disrupted last year by a student boycott, and the final examinations were postponed for two weeks after students said […]

THE Pretoria Regional Court refused bail to Schalk Willem Krugel (34) on Friday. Krugel is charged with three counts of conspiracy to murder and two of theft of cash. The case is related to the disappearance in 1996 of Stephanus Pelser (35) and Andrew Sweetnam (31) as well as Namibian lawyer Jan Gysbert Malan (39). […]

Cameron Duodu: LETTER FROM THE NORTH When Aids began to take its appalling toll on humankind, we were all scared as hell of it, of course. We listened with rapt attention to what the scientists had to say, for if anyone was going to save us from it, it was the scientists who had discovered […]

Thokozani Mtshali The New National Party in Mpumalanga withdrew the former mayor of Ethanduk’ukhanya township in Piet Retief from its election list following his arrest for attempted armed robbery, attempted murder and fraud. Alpheus Msibi, who was chair of the NNP in Piet Retief, and his nephew were arrested in November last year and charged […]

SPAIN beat Portugal 3-1 in the Meridian Cup under-17 soccer competition semifinal at the Athlone Stadium in Cape Town on Thursday. Portugal made and squandered several chances early on, and then Spain gradually took the initiative before half time. Portugal opened the scoring nevertheless in the 39th minute off a Luis Lourenco penalty kick awarded […]

With every short-sighted official in soccer having his say about chief executives and junior sides, Andrew Muchineripi wonders if anyone can see the field for the goalposts The grey clouds over Pretoria this week matched my mood with the Premier Soccer League (PSL) chief executive fiasco and the humiliation of the national junior team triggering […]

Karlin Lillington If you have a task to do, find someone to share the work and you get the job done in half the time. That’s the idea behind Distributed.net, a group that co- ordinates spare computer processor power from across the Internet to solve huge mathematical tasks which otherwise would take days, weeks, and […]

Evidence wa ka Ngobeni A man who was arrested on charges of stealing computers which were to be distributed to North-West province schools was robbed of the equipment before it could be recovered. Police are not able to explain why they did not take the computers – more than 900 of them valued at R12 […]

THE trial of a former Kenyan game park warden on charges of murdering British tourist Julie Ward in September 1988 was postponed in the Nairobi High Court on Thursday. Judge Daniel Aganyanya postponed the trial to February 26 to give prosecutors time to gather more evidence in the trial of Simon ole Makallah, now assistant […]

THIRTY-FIVE Rwandan war crimes suspects including a prominent politician were released from the central prison of Byumba on Friday after authorities determined that their cases should not proceed to trial. Among those freed were 23 Rwandans who were never formally charged, seven who were charged without evidence and five who suffered from terminal illnesses, according […]

Review of the week:Sue Williamson Fifteen years ago, travelling through Zambia, I studied the historical photographs on display in the town museum of Livingstone. Black bearers carried pith-helmeted white women in hammocks slung on long poles. Men with guns posed next to kills, a large bevy of black support staff lined up in the background. […]

Chiara Carter Youths swathed in Palestinian scarves were an image of the anti-apartheid revolt on the Cape Flats during the 1980s; the same garb is associated today with radical Muslims, notably People against Gangsterism and Drugs (Pagad) supporters. During the 1980s, many Cape Town Muslim clergy were more politicised than their counterparts in other parts […]

my father …. John Matshikiza:WITH THE LID OFF So, why With the Lid Off? Well, it’s a great title, isn’t it? It says what it means to say. But I don’t claim to have been witty enough to have thought it up by myself. Column titles churned around inside my head for many a sleepless […]

GLAMORGAN seam bowler Darren Thomas just had time to take his fifth wicket for England A before the third day of their match against their Zimbabwean counterparts was washed out again in Harare on Thursday. Thomas took the only wicket in the 75 minutes of play allowed by the rain as Zimbabwe A moved from […]

Jamie Doward Sony is set to capitalise on the success of PlayStation by launching a new portable device which allows users to play its electronic games on the move. The PocketStation plugs into a normal PlayStation and games can be loaded on to the smaller device from the larger one. Users can then play the […]

David Gleason The Heath commission is in possession of extraordinary documents from a secret arbitration that could throw light on the propriety of the R1,5-billion Absa lifeboat. The commission confirmed this week that it is aware of the secret arbitration, presided over by former chief justice Pierre Rabie, which was related to the Reserve Bank’s […]

Andrew Worsdale Pick of the week `This is the richest and most powerful nation of all and so it is the most hated … this country is at war 24-hours a day.” So says Jon Voight in his role as chief of the United States’s national security agency in Tony Scott’s exhilarating paranoid thriller, Enemy […]

TWO Eritrean warplanes bombed the northern Ethiopian town of Adigrat on Friday, the Ethiopian government said in a communique. “The intended target was the fuel depot and its surroundings,” the communique said, without saying whether any bombs struck the depot or whether there were casualties. The alleged strike, which could not be confirmed by other […]

The Lexmark 1000 Color Jetprinter started irritating me when I unpacked it, because it came with a standard thick printer cable. I suppose I should be grateful – colleagues reviewing other Lexmark printers didn’t get any cables. This is rather like selling a toaster without a plug, only worse, as a printer cable costs a […]

society My colleague Mungo Soggot’s glib call for a total ban on guns (“What’s the hold-up on banning guns?” January 29 to February 4 and preceding editorial “Ban guns, build jails, fire Sydney”) is as useful as a call to ban malaria. The fact is that guns are not so much a problem in themselves […]

THE De Beers black empowerment deal involving the high-grade Marsfontein mine in the Northern Province is undervalued by half, it was reported on Friday. It was announced last Friday that a 24% share of the mine will soon be held by black companies. De Beers is selling 49% of its 60% in Marsfontein for R200-million […]

SEVEN people were rescued by the Durban Fire Brigade on Thursday night, after a torrential downpour flooded the city, Radio 702 reports. The seven people were rescued in the Reservoir Hills area after 120mm of rain fell on the city in three hours. Fire chief Mark te Water said: “So far we are working on […]

EMERGENCY workers at Sydney airport in Australia have been commended for preventing what could have been a major air disaster, when a South African Airways jet caught fire shortly after landing. SAA’s regional manager in Sydney, Thevan Krishna, said SA 281 flight had just landed with 140 passengers on board when passengers and the control […]

Fiona Macleod A Pretoria businessman is suing conservation authorities for about R7- million after he discovered that buffalo he bought at a public auction are infected with a disease that is fatal to cattle. At least 150 cattle have died in the past two weeks at a farm in Dundee, KwaZulu-Natal, where the buffalo are […]

Unknown to most of the official delegates at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, last weekend, a caravan of 60 leftist economists, researchers and activists had sneaked through the police cordons to stage an “Alternative Davos”. It included intellectuals and activists from all five continents, a motley but determined crew who had spent two […]

A PAIR of Siamese twins who were separated at the abdomen last month have died, a doctor at Pretoria’s Ga-Rankuwa Hospital said on Thursday. The first twin died on Monday and her sister died on Thursday from a blood and bone infection related to prolonged intravenous feeding, paediatric surgery head Lesek Marciz said. The little […]

AMANDA Coetzer beat defending champion and top-seeded Lindsay Davenport of the United States 2-6 6-4 6-3 on Friday in the Toray Pan Pacific Open in Tokyo. The upset sees the seventh seeded South African advancing to the semi-finals — along with Australian Open champion Martina Hingis, who defeated Steffi Graf of Germany 3-6 6-2 6-4. […]