Mercedes Sayagues Why was Grace Mugabe sulking during her husband’s final campaign rally in Harare last Saturday? It could have been the low turnout – a mere 5E000 compared with the 100E000 who greeted Robert Mugabe on his return from exile 20 years ago. Or perhaps it was the three-hour delay in starting, while frantic […]
Meet the judges who will be presiding at the prestigious Investing in the Future Awards Mail & Guardian reporter An impressive panel of opinion-makers have agreed to judge the Investing in the Future Awards. The awards laud corporate social investment in South Africa and were established over a decade ago by the Mail & Guardian. […]
In the diamond area of Sierra Leone, rebels and members of the pro-government militia mine side by side Chris McGreal in Kenema The rebels were easy to spot. The three young men in stylish clothes, wearing sunglasses in the light drizzle, quickly caught the eye of the Lebanese businessman. He beckoned the youths toward an […]
Anton Harber OBITUARY There will be many stories told of the work Ismail Mahomed, the chief justice who succumbed to cancer last week, did for his clients in his many years at the Johannesburg Bar. I want to tell of one where we insisted he not do any work. Mahomed often represented the Mail & […]
New proposals could see water being delivered by private companies on the basis of financial sustainability, not need Glenda Daniels South African public sector unions have been caught off guard by the government’s announcement to fast-track regulations to privatise water delivery. Unions said this week they were still trying to work out the implications in […]
Kathryn Smith REVIEW OFTHEWEEK The commission for a monument to the women of South Africa was recently awarded to the combined team of sculptor Wilma Cruise and architect Marcus Holmes. As part of the Cabinet’s Legacy Project, administered by the Department of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology, construction has already begun in a vestibule and […]
Paul Kirk The number of arrests in the Durban suburb of Chatsworth has soared since the entire management team at its police station was flushed out after they were accused of corruption, brutality and incompetence. In the two weeks since new management has been installed, the police station has arrested 355 criminals for crimes ranging […]
THE Truth Commission’s Amnesty Committee has granted amnesty to former Minister of Police Adriaan Vlok, former Police Commissioner General Johannes Van Der Merwe and nine security policemen for their role in several bomb scares at cinema theatres around the country. The bomb scares, which all occurred in July 1988, were designed to prevent the film […]
and the hairy horn Glenda Daniels A 125-strong workforce from an East Rand factory went on strike after their boss refused to allow a witchdoctor into the premises to investigate why they were suffering rashes, impotence and headaches. When the witchdoctor was eventually allowed in, he discovered a piece of hairy animal horn, the removal […]
Plenty of people have modelled themselves on him, but Tom Waits has never slunk in anyone’s shadow Tom Cox We are complete numbskulls to believe it’s true, of course, but there’s a brief moment at the Rex Theatre in Paris when several thousand of us think that we just may have been given Tom Waits’s […]