Sport through the ages, always more than just a game Centuries ago, wars were put on “Pause” for the Olympic games. Today, sport is the new battleground as textured by patriotic fervour and loaded with political and ethnic fanaticism. Brace yourself for the coming two months, South Africa.
Rugby sets the perfect stage for soccer to show its beauty Saturday’s historic final final in the Super 14 rugby tournament – next year 15 teams compete – showed rugby at its grandest and South Africans united as only once before. Suddenly, anything seems possible again.
Sunday Times reflects the world in Fifa World Cup It may not entirely be South Africa’s “paper of record,” our equivalent of the New York Times, but it’s close enough. On May 30, with less than two weeks to go before kick-off, the Sunday Times crammed itself full of revealing World Cup stories – and in doing so took the temperature of a planet.
The Korean Peninsula: a place that just keeps on giving – in all the wrong ways News coming out of Korea is increasingly disturbing. On 26 March, the Cheonan, a South Korean naval patrol craft, was literally split apart by an explosion most now believe was caused by a North Korean torpedo. This has not only halted nascent rapprochement between the North and South, but played upon old hostilities – and brought the shutters of secrecy down with a bang.
Cosatu threatens strikes during World Cup, should Sepp be worried? Nah, not really. Cosatu is furious at the planned electricity hikes. It’s the one issue they really cannot stomach. They’re ready for a big national strike. We don’t know how this will end, but we’re fairly confident the World Cup is safe.
Breakthrough for media freedom in Zimbabwe One of Africa’s greatest press predators (the one up north, on the other side of the Limpopo) is going to get a lot more local media coverage after the Zimbabwe Media Commission granted publishing licenses to five papers, including the long-banned The Daily News and Trevor Ncube’s soon-to-be-launched NewsDay.
Zapiro bares all on Muhammad cartoon in, you guessed it, another cartoon The standard response of Jonathan Shapiro, aka Zapiro, when something he draws causes a reaction he considers to be unjustified is to publish another, more offensive cartoon. He hasn’t done that this time? Or has he?
Review: The Boys in the Photograph When stage sets for a musical get more rapturous applause than the cast itself, it can mean one of two things. Either the sets are astonishingly good or the cast is astonishingly bad.
Review: Loud, proud and exuberantly African Ten years ago “African Footprint” burst onto stage as a lively, lovely musical bubbling over with infectious enthusiasm. A decade later it’s as vibrant and captivating as ever, and so what if I’ve seen it five times already, I still sucked up every minute with glee.
Xhanti Payi: Lies, euphemism and the clash of cultures There’s one racial generalisation I know I can make without fear of contradiction, and it is that black people consider white people to be less respectful towards elders – at least in the way black people define respect for elders.
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