Jaspreet Kindra A deal to allow traditional authorities to function as parallel local councils was being hammered out this week in an effort to break the deadlock between traditional leaders and the government threatening to postpone the local government elections. The discussion of the plan suggests the African National Congress has backed down from its […]
Transformation of the media in the new South Africa has become a controversial topic Sean Jacobs Under apartheid, white South Africans enjoyed a racialised “public sphere” that excluded black people. Political media and news were geared to whites and media content largely reflected the skewed balance of power relations in society at that time. The […]
Iden Wetherell When Zimbabwe concluded its bloody election campaign in June the country heaved a sigh of relief as a return to normality beckoned. With more than 30 dead and thousands beaten and displaced in the ruling Zanu-PF party’s campaign of rural terror, it was hoped the country would at last find some peace. That […]
Before you can conquer new territory, you need to know where you are going Leon Forde Creating an accurate map of infinite, abstract cyberspace is not the easiest task for cartographers. Cyberspace, of course, does not exist. It is, to paraphrase novelist William Gibson, a consensual hallucination of space and surface – our brains perceive […]
Mail & Guardian reporters A former South African army colonel accused by the United States ambassador to the United Nations, Richard Holbrooke, of supplying weapons to rebels in Sierra Leone has written to the US envoy vigorously denying the claims. The former South African Defence Force (SADF) officer, Fred Rindel, has told Holbrooke that the […]
EIGHTEEN people died and 39 were injured when a bus hit a crowd as it swerved to avoid the presidential motorcade in Tanzania. The accident happened on the outskirts of Mwanza on the shores of Lake Victoria. Drivers in Tanzania are expected to pull over when the presidential motorcade passes. The brakes of the bus […]
STELLA MAPENZAUSWA and OWN CORRESPONDENT, Harare | Friday ZIMBABWE state telecommunications officials have outlawed an independent radio station and confiscated its broadcasting equipment after President Robert Mugabe’s government bulldozed hasty new regulations into law. Officials from the Post and Telecommunications Corporation dismantled antennae and other equipment from Capitol Radio’s studio at a central Harare hotel […]
Ebrahim Harvey Left field Coming on the heels of the Seattle, Davos and Washington battles against the World Trade Organisation (WTO), the meeting of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank in Prague last week has reinforced the rising power of the international mass movement against globalisation. Despite some major weaknesses it holds […]
Tangeni Amupadhi Namibia’s Minister of Home Affairs, Jerry Ekandjo, has perfected the art of jumping from the frying pan into the fire. Having barely recovered from a humiliating forced apology, he has now courted fresh controversy with statements that dwarf Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe’s gay-bashing. Ekandjo, who is in charge of the police, caused a […]
Belinda Beresford answers some of the most frequently raised claims put forward by the so-called dissidents A virus cannot cause a syndrome The orthodox viewpoint is that the human immunodeficiency virus – HIV – causes acquired immunodeficiency syndrome – Aids. HIV is just another virus. Different viruses tend to have preferences for attacking particular body […]