Staff Reporter

A RETIRED colonel is training 6 000 militiamen in Nigeria’s central Taraba State, which is locked in a bloody inter-ethnic feud with neighbouring Benue State, Radio Nigeria reported on Thursday. The radio quoted the commander of the 232 battalion in Yola, Brigadier General D. Yaji, as having told Taraba State Governor Jolly Nyame that that […]

How keeping fit is different for girls BODY LANGUAGE Rachel Cugnoni Men are weird in so many ways but they are at their weirdest when they play football. I’m not talking about the freaks who make a living out of it but the kind who spend their Sunday mornings shouting things like “man on” and […]

analysis Khadija Magardie Last week’s violence at the Zandspruit informal settlement in Gauteng, last month’s looting and burning of Somali-owned shops in Uitenhage and undoubtedly several undocumented attacks directed at foreigners, pose a serious question. Not whether locals become salivating mobs at the thought of a “kwere-kwere” moving in next door. But whether public education […]

Staff fear that infighting and an ongoing financial crisis will soon lead to the TV station’s demise Glenda Daniels and David Macfarlane A “cowboy style” management dictates the running of e.tv, causing a massive staff turnover that threatens the survival of the free-to-air broadcaster, staff members say. The controversial three-year-old TV station is racked by […]

The minister of finance also announced an increase in HIV/Aids spending Barry Streek and Glenda Daniels In the government’s first move to promote job creation through the tax system, Minister of Finance Trevor Manuel this week announced tax breaks for companies that employ new workers as learners. The announcement was a key feature of the […]

Marianne Merten Teenagers are wearing it. The elderly are wearing it. For weeks the only visible member of Muslims against Illegitimate Leaders, Abduraghman Khan, has been sporting it while claiming to have signed up about 1 000 volunteers for the war against the United States. It is, of course, the Osama bin Laden T-shirt. Various […]

I refer to the article by David Macfarlane titled: “We can’t afford silence” (October 26). I don’t understand why leading educationists in South Africa, the Education Department and Kader Asmal don’t just spell out the reason for the 85% drop in qualifying teachers, other than the effect of HIV/Aids. Government policy has caused the closure […]

The Springboks embark on their end-of-year tour without the excuse that they’re in a rebuilding phase Andy Capostagno The itinerary may include Genoa and Houston, but the Springbok tour of 2001 can hardly be called a trip into the unknown. If anything, the players and management know rather too much about what to expect from […]

John Young If your idea of a braai is burnt chops and dodgy wors over stuttering flames, then a universe-expanding experience awaits you at this weekend’s Chateau Libertas World Barbecue Championships, to be held at Canal Walk, Century City, in Cape Town. Barbecued musselcracker tandoori, rooibos-smoked tomatoes, waterblommetjie risotto and a prune, bacon and corn […]

Martin Gillingham At least two of Australia’s top rugby league clubs are trying to tempt troubled Wallaby winger Andrew Walker into making a return to the 13-man game. It’s barely five months since Walker was the toast of Canberra when he kicked 21 points for the Brumbies in their 36-6 triumph over the Sharks in […]

Santos eliminated Ajax Cape Town to enter the semifinals of the Coca-Cola Cup Ntuthuko Maphumulo It took 90 minutes of regulation play, 29 minutes of extra time and a golden goal by Jean Marc Ithier on Wednesday to secure Santos a berth in the Coca-Cola Cup semifinal against Kaizer Chiefs this weekend. Ajax Cape Town […]

BOXING Deon Potgieter Saturday’s fight at Carnival City between World Boxing Union (WBU) featherweight champion Cassius Baloyi and WBU junior-lightweight champion Phillip Ndou is not only a contest between the two popular Northern Province boxers, it’s also a grudge match between their trainers. Baloyi’s trainer Brian Mitchell and Ndou’s Nic Durandt are known as the […]

Glenda Daniels Loyalty to a company, together with lifetime employment, is a thing of the distant comfortable past. This worldwide trend is particularly pertinent in South Africa where retrenchments are rife. More than one-million jobs have been lost over the past decade according to the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu). But managers still […]

David Macfarlane Unisa will receive its government subsidy this month but the university’s controversy-ridden council continues its open defiance of the government. Unisa staff fear the council’s stance jeopardises the university’s future, in particular the role defined for it in the national higher education plan. Confrontation between Minister of Education Kader Asmal and the Unisa […]

Jaspreet Kindra African National Congress officials at a top-level meeting last weekend tried to persuade the South African Communist Party to withdraw its support for the Congress of South African Trade Unions’s anti-privatisation campaign. The ANC pulled out its heavy artillery for the meeting between the two alliance partners on Sunday. Its delegation was led […]

Neil McIntosh Apple has unveiled a stylised, portable MP3 player that boasts what the company calls a “breakthrough” in storage space and industrial design. The iPod, roughly the same size as a pack of cards and weighing 0,23kg, sports a large five gigabyte hard disk, enough to store 1 000 songs. Apple also claims an […]

analysis Pallo Jordan Hegel once wrote that a political party becomes real only when it becomes divided. This dialectical statement will strike some as odd, but its profundity lies precisely in its paradoxical nature. Provided that it is not brain dead, as a political movement grows, its inner contradictions inevitably begin to unfold. But as […]

Relations between the ruling party and religious leaders strained over arms deal and what action to take on HIV/Aids Jaspreet Kindra President Thabo Mbeki has joined the chorus of African National Congress criticism of church leaders, suggesting that they have abandoned the common struggle against the legacy of apartheid. And in a further salvo in […]

Barry Streek An apartheid-era proposal to licence journalists in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) has been incorporated into a protocol that was signed by the heads of state of its 14 member countries in August. “State parties shall establish a regional and internationally recognised SADC accreditation system or procedure for media practitioners with specific […]

After a comprehensive win in the one-day series, South Africa are favoured to beat India in the Tests Peter Robinson After a week during which the Indian tour found itself bogged down in the slush at Chatsworth stadium, slightly better service should be resumed in Bloemfontein on Saturday with the start of the first Test […]

Hoping for the prevalence of principle in politics is a bit like expecting the lion to lie down with the lamb: it’s a lovely idea, but lousy as a prediction. We on this newspaper, however, persist in the naive hope that principle will prevail; and we have not hesitated to make of it a demand. […]

Who is Winnie Madikizela-Mandela: an ambitious rabble-rouser, or a champion of the poor? An ungovernable spendthrift, or a misunderstood woman persecuted for her criticism of government? Madikizela-Mandela spoke to Sipho Seepe, RehanaRossouw andDrew Forrest about the economy, Aids, the arms package, the tripartite alliance, women, her debts and her fraud case Rehana Rossouw: What do […]

I do not like to bore readers with slanging matches. But allow me to make an exception with Ebrahim Rasool’s letter of October 26 (“Does Rhoda Kadalie want a job with the DA?”). Let me respond to Rasool’s main charges. First, the African National Congress’s “coconut” advertisement is racist. It is a cheap shot that […]

The award of a R10-billion contract for fighter trainers may be contested in court Paul Kirk One of the largest contracts awarded in South Africa’s R60-billion arms deal may be challenged in court by an Italian aeronautics company that lost out to a British contender after then-defence minister Joe Modise intervened to change the tender […]

BOOK REVIEW Peter Robinson JONTYINPICTURES(with text by Andy Capostagno) Viking This is, as the title suggests, Jonty Rhodes in pictures. Jonty with his shirt on, Jonty with his shirt off, Jonty batting, Jonty fielding and, a rare one this, Jonty fielding. In essence it’s a book for members of the Jonty Rhodes Fan Club (those […]

Evidence wa ka Ngobeni and Gregory Mthembu-Salter The South African government was under such pressure to respond to former president Nelson Mandela’s request to deploy a protection force to war-torn Burundi that it invoked an emergency provision in the Constitution to belatedly inform Parliament of the decision. Last week opposition parties raised concerns about the […]

Neal Collins Lucas Radebe faces an uncertain future in the game that has been his life. According to sources at Leeds United, the Soweto-reared centre-half might never be able to train properly again, such is the state of his creaking 32-year-old knees. The Chief, Rhoo, Lucas, call him what you will, but life has been […]

More than R150-million worth of yacht has arrived in Cape Town in the past week John Young The Formula One of ocean racing decamped in Cape Town this week, but so far Capetonians have responded less with a buzz than with a purr. The arrival of the Illbruck, winner of the first leg of the […]

Tony Leon’s arrogant treatment of the NNP drove it into the ANC’s arms, argues Drew Forrest In the highly fluid aftermath of the New National Party’s withdrawal from the Democratic Alliance, it is impossible to say how much damage has been inflicted on the multiparty cause in South Africa. But if there is significant damage, […]

The troubled Road Accident Fund cannot seem to steer clear of controversy Nawaal Deane The deputy chairperson of the cash-strapped Road Accident Fund this week announced his resignation amid internal clashes and allegations that his own firm’s work for the fund constituted a conflict of interest. The controversial selection of an assessor who has a […]

Although he pioneered the PlayStation 2, the favourite toy of Sony chief Ken Kutaragi is not its games console, as Steven Poole discovers ‘Plus plus plus plus plus plus!” That, according to Ken Kutaragi, is the videogame business. The smiling, dapper president of Sony Computer Entertainment Inc is talking, in his charmingly idiosyncratic way, about […]

Hazel Friedman “Can I pour you a SADC special ? Or one of our alcohol-free independence day cocktails perfect for a sobering day?” I am sitting in a shebeen on the outskirts of Maseru. Three years ago, this was the watering hole of choice for journalists bored with sipping sundowners at the Lesotho Sun hotel. […]